Starting Up Careers: Bloomberg LP develops the next generation of STEM professionals

This article is written by Cory Sekine-Pettite from Diversity in Action, link to original post. 

For the past three summers, Brooklyn College junior Stephon Lawrence has been interning with the software engineering team at Bloomberg LP in New York. Because of his internship, the computational mathematics major says he is way ahead of his computer science classmates.

“The intern experience is amazing,” Lawrence says. “They have a lot of events that allow you to meet other interns and [Bloomberg] employees. Those experiences really opened me up to [a diverse environment]…the actual work opened me up to a lot of structure in code that I wasn’t really aware of, and it showed me what I should do when I want to build something that is enterprise-ready.”

Lawrence is part of Bloomberg Startup, the financial services firm’s global education engagement program offering year-round mentoring and a series of technical and leadership workshops to support academic achievement and college and career readiness for the next generation of leaders. Launched in 2015, the program is geared largely toward high school and college students. It is supported by nonprofit education engagement partners such as Good Shepherd Services, which operates programs helping nearly 30,000 underserved youth and family members in New York, and FIRST Robotics, a STEM-focused mentoring program.

Bloomberg COO Beth Mazzeo says the firm developed the Startup program because the company is passionate about helping students develop job skills and interpersonal skills needed to be successful in life. “When you couple our wanting to give back to the community and our wanting to really help people, Startup is a natural thing for our company and for our employees,” she says.

Currently, Bloomberg Startup works with about 100 nonprofit partners around the world. “Our employees are very passionate about this program – being involved and having the opportunity to help shape some of the lives of these young individuals that we get to engage with on a regular basis,” Mazzeo says.

Lawrence, a Brooklyn native, learned about the program during his senior year of high school when he joined the robotics club. A Bloomberg software engineer already was mentoring his school’s robotics team. “He taught me a lot about C++ and Java,” Lawrence says. “Even out of the scope of robotics, he taught me how to create projects on the side that were really helpful to grow my understanding of the [computer] languages.”

Bloomberg Startup has polished more than Lawrence’s coding skills; it has improved his social skills as well. Bloomberg staffers taught him how to give a business presentation. He also learned that in his future career, he often might come face to face with clients/customers who aren’t as educated on the technical side of coding as he is. “I might be talking to marketers or clients at times, so I can’t use a lot technical words [with them]. These social skills are really useful to learn now.”

Additionally, Lawrence has taken what he has learned at Bloomberg and is giving back by mentoring the high school robotics team of which he used to be a member. This fact is characteristic of the effectiveness and far-reaching influence that Bloomberg Startup can have. The students are becoming the teachers.

In 2017, Bloomberg provided summer internships for 75 students in the Bloomberg Startup nonprofit network. The program’s global education engagement curriculum is adapted for the company’s nonprofit partners around the world. Thus far, workshops have been held in 41 cities, providing a unique experience for students and nonprofit partners in those locations.

Partners are chosen because of similar interests and goals in improving young lives and helping students with their career goals. Mazzeo gave an example of one such partnership: the National Center for Women & Information Technology runs a program called Aspirations in Computing that provides a long-term community for female technologists, from K-12 through higher education and beyond. “We have a very close partnership with them,” she says. “Getting [women] interested in the STEM fields and keeping them in the STEM fields is what we truly want to do.”

Bloomberg’s staff/mentors are key to Startup’s success. Many employees are willing to give of their time for the program. Mazzeo calls it “a beautiful thing.” And it lines up with founder Michael Bloomberg’s personal mission of giving back, she adds. “Education is a big pillar for Mike.”

In 2016, the firm had more than 3,600 employees devote a total of more than 28,000 hours of their time to various mentor programs, engaging and inspiring the next generation’s interest in technology and entrepreneurism. Employees have the opportunity to develop content and workshops geared toward academic preparation, as well as career readiness – especially in STEAM. Bloomberg says the workshops aim to expose students to training opportunities and experiences that will broaden their perspectives and build technical skills. Topics range from Python Code Camp, Personal Branding, Project Management and Planning, The Bloomberg Way: Intro to News Literacy, Intro to Supply Chain and many others.

Elizabeth Carney is a software engineer for the mortgages department at Bloomberg, and she has participated in the Startup program for the past two years. She is a mentor for one of the FIRST Robotics teams, she participates in the Python Code Camps and Java Code Camps, and she recently developed her own program where she helps to organize an after-school program for middle school students in conjunction with Good Shepherd. “Our goal is to spark an interest in engineering in middle school girls. Once a month, we will prepare an activity, usually something engineering-centric. For example, one time we had the girls build as tall a tower as they could out of sticks and straws. And it had to balance a tennis ball on top, so you had to have some engineering savvy. We showed them how a cross-brace works.”

Carney says these programs are incredibly effective for the kids involved. “I’ve seen some of the high schoolers that we work with become [Bloomberg] interns,” she said. “It’s amazing that they’re so involved in engineering programs; they’re learning so much that they could actually come and be a member of an engineering program for a 10- to 12-week internship.”

Students want to be a part of the Bloomberg culture, Mazzeo says. “When they get introduced to Bloomberg, it’s a big ‘wow.’ We pride ourselves on bring a very entrepreneurial, creative, highly energetic and giving-back culture. So when they start to meet our people and they see the passion in our people, it’s very addicting.”

Bloomberg employees love the program just as much. “They work endless amounts of hours in bringing all of this together,” Mazzeo continued. “When you think about all of the personal time they give up in order to do this, it speaks volumes about our people.”

Moreover, Mazzeo sees the company’s future leaders developing right before her eyes. “When you want to see who potential leaders of the organization are, you watch them run one of these projects; you’ll see skills in them…that say a lot about their future abilities.”