Meet The Emerge Intern – Growth Labs
The Chicago Scholars and Invest for Kids Emerge Summer Career and Leadership Program is already almost halfway over! We’re celebrating this year’s class of interns by bringing you a weekly blog post focused on their experience – continuing on this week with a look what projects our interns are working on, and what they’re learning on the job.
This week, we’re featuring a blog post from Henry Lui, whom is interning this summer with Cars Commerce, and is a Chicago Scholar from the Class of 2026. He is currently attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Read on for his full post focused on the Growth Labs interns attend each Friday:
As part of the Emerge Program, every Friday, scholars attend professional and leadership
development sessions hosted by a different company each week. In these growth labs, scholars
have the opportunity to learn about the company, network with senior leaders, and engage with
their cohort in the various activities planned for the day.
So far, my cohort has had the chance to visit J.P. Morgan, Equity Group Investment, and Public
Rec. At J.P. Morgan, we learned about the private bank division and had the opportunity to hear
from a group of panelists about their career journey. At Equity Group Investment, we had a Q&A session with the president, Mark Sotir, and an amazing tour of the art pieces around the office. At Public Rec, we heard from the founder, Zach Goldstein, on how he went from working in the finance industry to starting his own clothing company. All of these experiences have been
drastically different, but they all have taught me something new.
While internships provide scholars with the opportunity to get hands-on experience and to
develop professionally, these growth labs provide, other than just opportunities for networking
and learning about a company, a chance to reflect on their personal and professional goals. One
of the main themes that has been present for the past growth labs has been “Why?” Hearing
these stories from professionals on how they started in their industry and ended where they are
encourages me to reflect on what I would like to accomplish in my career and most importantly
why I want to do it. This is an especially important aspect to consider when deciding how you
would want to spend the rest of your time in college, and which future internship opportunities
you would want to pursue.
But above all, I would say the most valuable aspect of the growth labs is the time spent with
your cohort and mentor. The people are definitely the ones who make this Emerge experience
memorable. Being surrounded with people with ambition really encourages me to always strive
to be a better person. It motivates me to make the most out of my internship, to get myself out of
my comfort zone, and to work towards my career goals. The coaches also play a huge role in
creating such a wonderful experience. These are people who you can rely on for anything, and
it’s reassuring to know that you have people that have your back throughout this program.