WorldCare International, Boston, MA
This summer I worked with WorldCare, a company that connects people with medical second opinions (MSOs) after a life-threatening, long term, complex diagnosis. If your employee offers WorldCare as a benefit, you have access to their clinical operations team as well as their consortium of experts. Then, after receiving a diagnosis, WorldCare would connect you with a case nurse to walk you through the process of getting a second opinion from an expert.
My time at WorldCare was spent working with a team of other Williams interns to problem solve a data issue WorldCare was having. My supervisor, Chief Operating Officer Ed Wiggers ’90, had an idea to use AI to find and structure more data than was being initially collected. My work was mostly spent examining this challenge and working with other professionals and experts to find the best way to make this work.
Throughout this process, I learned a lot about data management. As a statistics major, working with data and understanding how to store and access it will be at least a small part of my future career, if not a vital component. After working with WorldCare, I am significantly more equipped to handle this aspect of a job. I also have a better sense of what type of role or relationship I want statistics to take in terms of my career path. I’ve learned that I’m more interested in using the data than in managing it but also that I love problem-solving.
In addition to figuring out what direction I want to take my statistics major in, I also learned a lot about working in a corporate environment. I found the organizational aspects of working on a team to be fulfilling, and I would love to work in a similar office job in the future. I developed skills in a lot of the tools that most companies I will work with use (Outlook, Excel, WebEx), which makes me feel like adapting to my next internship or job will be easier. One of the more surprising things that I learned is that I really thrive when I have the chance to be creative—whether that’s making PowerPoint slide decks or devising a new solution to a problem, I work best when I get the chance to come up with ideas and concepts on my own. This revelation is particularly important to me because it helps me to know what will make me happy in the future, not simply what will be most successful and productive for me.
Overall, I’ve learned a lot about what I will and won’t be looking for in my next job, and there is so much more that I’ll be ready for. I’m grateful to the ’68 Center for making it possible for me to explore this opportunity. It has been so valuable to my personal and professional development.