Internships are golden opportunities for MBA students to put theory into practice, and to get a taste of what their post-MBA careers may be like.
Dartmouth Tuck second-year MBA student Sneha Nagarajan T’20 took to the Tuck 360 blog to discuss her thoroughly intersectional business experience as a MetLife intern.
A Dartmouth Tuck Internship at the Intersection of Strategy & Business: MetLife
by Sneha Nagarajan T’20 
I came to Tuck knowing I was choosing the generosity, commitment, and kindness of the people of this community over everything else.
When I was choosing my internship, that remained just as important to me. After having spent a summer at MetLife, I am convinced that even a 150-year-old company with ~50K employees across the globe can foster a culture of collaboration and collective progress. MetLife Inc., a global insurance company, early on realized the need for creating its next generation global leaders to further its cause. With that, the Global Leadership Development Program for MBA graduates was born in 2013.
I was part of the 16-member cohort of GLDP interns from business schools across the globe including Tuck, LBS, Darden, HBS, Fuqua, HKUST and Kellogg among others. With 75 percent women and over 60 percent internationals, this was by far one of the most diverse and accomplished group of peers I have had the opportunity to work with.
The program allowed us to choose from a range of roles within the business and supporting the business, including strategy, marketing, finance, tech, and innovation business units. I worked in the Global Strategy team directly reporting to the AVP and VP of competitive intelligence and new initiatives. My project, focused on rethinking MetLife’s innovation system and detailing it out with various cross-functional teams, was exciting because of the novelty that is being introduced to a centuries-old industry!
Having worked in consulting prior to b-school, I made a comfortable transition to a strategy role in the insurance industry, a completely new space for me. With the support of other GLDP members and my team, I was able to grasp the nuances of the field and apply it to my work. Aside from my major project, I also worked with three other interns on an Action Learning Project (ALP) to make recommendations on improving Salesforce utilization. This was a real business problem, led and solved entirely by our team. When I was faced with challenges on shaping the project, I often found myself drawing inspiration from my learnings working on my Tuck FYP.
Outside of work, since most interns came from different parts of the world, we relied on each other to find home in New York City. We did rooftop barbecues, celebrated several birthdays, explored the New York restaurant scene; Many of us even experienced our first Broadway musical! The experience that stood out the most for me was the GLDP intern speaker series that I organized: Over the course of our summer every GLDP intern hosted a lunch chat to talk about their experience.
It was enriching to hear the perspectives of my peers about the future of the company, their projects and teams, and their career plans within the program. Overall, I found the program and company to be very inclusive and full of opportunities. With 3 rotations over 5-years, I am excited to explore the possibilities that lie ahead, including global rotations, cross-functional roles and the opportunity to lead a business unit after the program. The Tuck network at MetLife GLDP is now 8-cohorts strong, and the alumni never hesitated in extending their undivided time and support to help me progress.
I went into my internship hoping for an experience at the intersection of strategy and business, I came out having received so much more!
Sneha is a second-year MBA student from India. Having majored in architecture and engineering, she brings a balance of creativity and technical skills to the table. She is a firm believer in small changes by individuals with a desire to leave behind a world better than what they found.
