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Transcript

Tim Sablik: Hello, podcast listeners! On today's show, I'm pleased to be joined by three of the Richmond Fed's summer interns.

Every summer, students from colleges and universities across the country contribute to a variety of business lines here at the Bank. This year, we had 47 interns from more than 20 colleges and universities. I'm joined by three of them today, and they're going to share some about their experiences this summer.

First is David Cox, a senior at Virginia Tech majoring in economics and political science, who interned for Supervision, Regulation and Credit or SRC. David, welcome to the show.

David Cox: Hello, everyone. I'm excited to be here today.

Sablik: Next is Adin Hammond, a third year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, majoring in economics and mathematics, who interned for the Research department. Welcome, Adin.

Adin Hammond: Thank you, Tim.

Sablik: My third guest is Tyrese Wheaton, a rising senior studying communications at the University of Mary Washington, who interned for Corporate Communications. Welcome, Tyrese.

Tyrese Wheaton: Happy to be here.

Sablik: To start things off, what led each of you to pursue an internship at the Fed and the Richmond Fed, specifically? David, let's start with you.

Cox: For me, it really all started out with a career fair. Because I'm a political science major and econ student, I [felt] like I should definitely at least check out the Fed and have a conversation. I ended up having a great conversation and left my resume, not really thinking about it. Come to find out a few hours later, I get reached out to do an informational call with a few of the folks. I had another great conversation virtually and they encouraged me to apply for the internship.

Ultimately, I did and, lo and behold, my internship is wrapping up in less than a week. I couldn't be happier with my experience.

Sablik: Yeah, this is sort of an unofficial exit interview for you. [Laughter] Adin, how about you?

Hammond: I was first introduced to the Federal Reserve Banks through a high school program in St. Louis, Missouri. It was called the Student Board of Directors. They basically had you visiting the [St. Louis Fed] once a month throughout your senior year. In the end, they opened the opportunity for high school seniors to apply for the internship program. I applied and I got into the Research department, and this is kind of when my love for economics began.

I interned at the St. Louis Fed one more summer after that in the Treasury support department. Then I was referred by my previous supervisor to work here in the Research department. I'm really happy to be here. I've learned a lot.

Sablik: Great. Tyrese?

Wheaton: My path was a little different. I started looking into jobs around September of last year, just checking out what's available. I was also getting the question of, "Why are you a communications major?" And I was like, what jobs do communication majors do? I switch majors a lot, so communication is probably like my third major of college after a bunch of major switches.

I saw that there were a bunch of internship positions labeled for the summer of this year. I put in a bunch of applications. The [Richmond] Fed was one of them. I looked into their social medias. I saw the different things they do on their communications team — they have the Corporate Communications department, they had communications in SRC. So, there were a lot of roles that I could do within the Fed. I watched some of their series on the interns that did a summer here. It was a "day in the life" and I really liked the culture that was here, so I put in that application.

I was really nervous that I wasn't going to hear back. Then they came to my school for a career fair, talked to the lady, told her that I put in an application, and then less than a week, I heard back, and I got an interview. Now I'm here today.

Sablik: Can each of you share a little bit about the area of the Bank that you worked in this summer, and what was the most interesting project that you worked on?

Cox: Talking about SRC, you're really fitting into that bank examiner role. Being a regulator for the Federal Reserve, you're really just trying to ensure banks all across the Fifth District — whether that's community banks or the largest banks in the world — follow along the lines of regulation and ensure they're safe and sound.

I would say my two most interesting projects I worked on was definitely the bank simulation and the community bank exam that we went on. During that bank simulation, we were on the other side of the script — being a banker rather than regulator — so it was definitely interesting and a unique experience. We had SRC interns going on a community bank examination in a very small town. We went to only a couple banks throughout the town, but participating in this exam in person, you really got to see how regulators work and interact with top executives at banks.

Wheaton: I got to work on the social media team of my department. I thought that was really cool because that's my main focus in communications.

I've done a lot of work with different companies and groups on their social medias, and so one of the projects that I got to do was come up with a YouTube recovery plan for the Fed. I thought that was really cool, getting to work with a platform that I've never worked before, help a company grow instead of just maintaining a presence.

Cox: I think reviving that YouTube channel is definitely important. When I was looking at internships at different companies and such, I would see if they had a YouTube channel to see what was the message they were trying to give out.

Hammond: The most interesting project I was working on was measuring the effects of climate change on house prices [in] coastal cities. This was really interesting because I've never done work like this before. We used data that would project how much the sea level would rise in certain years, surveys that would ask people about how they felt about climate, and mortgage data on current prices of houses and their location and risk of flooding. We used all this data and combined it to analyze the partial effect of this flooding risk on the prices.

This was really interesting because I didn't realize how many moving parts there are when it comes to buying decisions. It's not just whether the house will be flooded. It's about whether the buyer will think it'll be flooded or whether the seller thinks it will be flooded by that time and what does the county believe. This was really interesting in estimating these effects.

Sablik: Those all sound like very fascinating projects and very different projects, which I think provides a sense of how many different things the Fed does — more than just set interest rates or, like all my friends think, print money, which is, I'm sure you all learned, is not actually what we do.

Hammond: Exactly.

Sablik: What is something that you learned this summer that you think enhances what you've been studying at school?

Hammond: I took this econometrics class where you learn a lot about regressions and fixed effects and how to estimate causal effects when you're using data. In taking the course, it was kind of tedious and I was like, I'm not sure how much you're going to use this. But when speaking with the economists, they would remind me [to] refer to your textbook. These are very important things that you learned. It was just crazy to think about how effective it was and how much more prepared I felt.

Cox: I can definitely touch on that a little bit because I'm an econ major, too. We always learn about, yeah, the Fed changes interest rates, right? They have a lot of different roles in how the economy works. But really going into the Fed, you really see that in action.

As a political science major, we learn a ton about the legal aspects of things, along with how policies created, but not really touching too deep onto how policy is implemented throughout our country. In starting with the Fed SRC, and specifically rotating through the CA [Community Affairs] department within SRC, we really honed in on stuff such as CRA, the Community Reinvestment Act, or Regulation Z, amongst a bunch of others.

Wheaton: I feel like you being an econ major and a political [science major], did you know that you were going to come to the Fed? Did you know?

Cox: I think I had it in the back of my mind. I always thought I was going to do law school, and I was really being like, okay, corporate lawyer, we'll run it up for sure. But going throughout my college experience, I just kept on learning more and more about the Fed. I feel like maybe this is somewhere I could end up eventually.

Wheaton: For me, going from doing social medias for a fraternity or for a small downtown restaurant that's more urban style [to] working for the Fed and having a more serious audience, I don't want to say [I don't have] as much freedom to post. But we're working with a lot of confidential information and we do have people that are trusting us with their money, so we can't post entertainment, something that's very inappropriate or something that's trending that might not be funny to a CEO of a company.

Sablik: No Federal Reserve TikTok yet. [Laughter]

Cox: Not yet, not yet. You never know.

Sablik: You've all kind of touched on this already, but what's something about the Fed that you learned while you were here that maybe you didn't know before?

Wheaton: Going into the Bank, before you enter, you either think of it as they print money [or] all they do is sit around computers [and] talk about the economy. To be honest — this might be a little embarrassing — when I thought of the Fed, I literally thought of a bank teller. I thought they were the little desk in the back, but those are the people that give out loans and stuff.

Obviously, when I did more research into it, I learned about the different roles. Coming in, you learn that there's an HR department that's really big, there's auditing, there's a corporate communications part that does social media. So, it's not just working with money all the time.

There's a role here for everyone. We have a gym. People that just teach fitness have a job at the Federal Reserve. People that work in cafeterias have a job at the Federal Reserve. It's not just if you're an econ major or you're a political science major, you have a role at the Federal Reserve. Everyone has a small little piece to contribute to the Federal Reserve.

Cox: Yeah, you definitely have a bunch of diverse people for a common mission, and that's something I really like about the Fed.

I can touch more a little bit about what Ty said. When we're learning about the Fed in econ classes and stuff, you're always told, yeah, the Fed can change interest rates. They can do quantitative easing and tightening. At some point of time, I even thought they printed money. Turns out that's not even remotely true. But then you go into the roles of, say, regulation, research, National IT. There are so many roles that the Fed plays within the Fifth District, within this country.

Sablik: We've been talking about a lot of the serious work that we do here, but what's something non-work related that you got to enjoy about your summer here in Richmond?

Cox: I could touch on this. I'm from Virginia. I'm from Northern Virginia, Loudoun County. I go to school to Virginia Tech [and] visited Virginia Beach, but for some reason I have never been to Richmond.

One thing that I notice, and I'm a big foodie, is that Richmond has pretty good food and a lot of different options. So, whatever you're feeling, I'm sure you can find it.

There's also a lot of different things to do for anyone — whether that's museums, trails, the river. If you put yourself out there, I feel like you can really make your experience in Richmond the way you want it to be.

Hammond: I definitely would have to agree.

One thing I enjoy about the summer outside of work was the shops in Carytown. The unfortunate side is that they close around 5 [or] 5:30, so you have to go on the weekends or leave work early. I love all the boutiques and thrift stores. I'm a very thrifty girl. I try to be cost effective anytime I can. They have a lot of very cute things for reasonable prices.

I also enjoyed walking around Brown's Island. That was really nice, very peaceful. Sometimes me and my roommate, Caitlin, would walk around after work and just reset.

Wheaton: I've read some kind of article, I don't know if you guys have seen it, where Richmond is an up-and-coming major city. I love that for the city, but I want to keep it a hidden gem — a big enough city where you can do whatever you want to do, but you're not overly paying for everything.

There's not that much traffic. Once you're in the city, you're there. Every time I want to hang out with someone, and they could live across town, I'll put it in my GPS and it will say seven minutes. Everything is so close. Everything's so cheap. There are so many things to do.

Sablik: To wrap things up, do you have any advice for students looking at internships next summer, maybe for internships at the Fed, based on your experience here?

Hammond: I would definitely search up what the Federal Reserve does before you get here.

Wheaton: Um, I second that.

Cox: Third.

Hammond: That would be really helpful just to get an idea. Obviously, you're not going to know everything about the place before you get here, but that's good to do.

For econ majors hoping to intern in the Research department, I would definitely say it's good to have at least one coding software under your belt before you start. They'll teach you other ones that you need to know, and they'll even be able to enhance your skills [on] the ones that you already have, knowing how to use one very well. For me, it was RStudio.

Cox: For me, I would say try to lock in and be prepared because eventually you'll have to, whether that's applying to a ton of different internships and jobs over the year, interviews back to back. The ball really keeps on rolling.

And when your summer internship starts, there's going to be a time where you're challenged, times where you have to step out of your comfort zone. So, like I said, you're really going to have to lock in and try your best to give it your all.

Wheaton: Some advice that I wish I had before going in is that when we look through these jobs as we're going in, they have criteria saying that they only take juniors or seniors. And I talked to some people and [they] are like, "Oh, I interned here as a freshman last year." We even have a high school intern. So, if you don't think you're qualified, apply. The worst thing that's going to happen is that they tell you no. But the best thing that could happen is you have a head start over me, who's a rising senior, and you're a high school walking around the Federal Reserve.

Another thing is with business lines, the same thing. I went into the Federal Reserve and when I applied, it said "business internship." I'm not a business major, I'm a business admin minor. But it made it seem like it was only looking for business majors. I put my application in and I'm here. So, try your hand at everything. Put in those applications. Don't limit yourself.

Cox: You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take.

Hammond: Actually, there's one more thing I wanted to mention.

One thing that I would probably say about interns who are considering a PhD in economics: Learning about what economists do here and what type of work they do and what their work life looks like, that was really informative to me in deciding if I want to get a PhD in economics. There's a lot of caveats. You have to take a lot of math classes. You have to have a lot of experience and have a good mindset before you start a PhD.

Working as an intern and then maybe even going into a research associate role, those all help prepare you and they give you the support you need. For anyone who's considering being an RA in the future, they fund your classes if you want to take classes as an RA. So, slight plug: RA at the Richmond Fed.

Sablik: All really great advice. David, Adin and Tyrese, thanks so much for being here today and joining me. This was a lot of fun.

Cox: Of course, it was fun being here.

Sablik: Best of luck in your next endeavors.

Cox: Thank you.

Hammond: Thank you.

Wheaton: Appreciate it.