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Sophie van Buiten: Working Student @Deloitte!

After I received my Bachelor Degree, I really felt I gained a lot of knowledge and skills, but I lacked experience in how to apply these in the business world. Therefore, I decided to do an internship and to move to Amsterdam. I always wanted to live here because of its dynamic, atmosphere and international culture.  Luckily I found an internship here thanks to another IEM-student, so in September my journey as a working student at Deloitte started! Deloitte is a big consulting company offering different services (e.g. Consulting, Legal, Financial Services, etc. ) in different industries (e.g. Energy & Resources, Technology, Media & Communication, etc.)  Being part of this organization offered me a very busy but informative and exciting time (and it still is)!
 

I am working for 4 days a week as part of the IoT-team, which stands for Internet of Things. For the once who are not familiar with this term, it is about connecting physical objects to the digital world using sensors in order to create valuable data and use cases. This team is part of Deloitte Digital (Technology Consulting) which offers services in the digital transformation.
The first month was mostly about getting to know Deloitte and supporting on different projects, but per October I became part of a real cool project which was part of Deloitte Launch. Deloitte Launch is an internal program which offers the opportunity to launch a product/solution and act like a start-up. My manager saw an opportunity in the market concerning a problem in the healthcare industry. Unfortunately, I cannot mention the details as this product is still in development. After having performed market research, validation of the problem, users interviews, building the business case, developing a prototype & testing, and solution pitching, we are now in the phase of obtaining the launch client and ready to fully develop and implement this IoT solution. I really enjoy this project because of the great team but also because of the variety of tasks and subjects involved in this project; Financials, technology, architecture of platforms, legal, (big) data, service design etc.
 

So far my time at Deloitte seems quite serious, however, Deloitte is not only doing business activities. Besides the Friday drinks and team building activities, a special initiative to mention is the Roparun: Together with some of my Deloitte Digital colleagues I am going to run a relay race from Paris to Rotterdam, which means that each runner has to run 66 km. For a good cause! We try to raise money via sponsoring activities for palliative care for cancer patients who are terminal. This trajectory includes organizing money raising activities, trainings and even a trainings weekend in Germany has just passed.
 

Having mentioned above, it seems like I only have a Zuid-as life, however, I have also joined the Student Theater Association in Amsterdam which means I rehearse every week for playing in the ‘Ja Zuster, Nee Zuster’ musical. Consequently, I am not having a totally civic life, but also still the nice aspects of the student life: Parties!
 

Unfortunately, my time in Amsterdam is almost at its end, but I am also looking forward to study again, even though I would really like to be a Deloitter ever again!

(PS: If my story has inspired you and you would like to know more about having a time (in between/during/after your study) at Deloitte, don’t hesitate to contact me, as we are always looking for IEM-talent!)