Rayon Taylor
Rayon Taylor is a junior at the ILR School. He graduated from Seton Hall Preparatory School in New Jersey. Ray spent the summer working for UBS Financial Services.
“I spent the summer working as a Summer Business Associate in the New Jersey Office of UBS Financial Services. UBS is one of the world’s largest financial services firm. While there I worked with the wealth management arm. My learning experience there was extremely enjoyable. I started out just making copies but as the summer progressed, I ended up working on a couple of big projects. My supervisor gave me some big responsibilities.
“I worked on generating reports on the progress of some financial advisors for the firm. I was tracking the progress of all the new financial advisors and making sure that they were producing up to par. I got to see what the financial advisors do, how they prospect new clients and how they pitch the company products. I got to learn a lot about the business.
“Going in, I knew it was going to be different from my ILR background. It was completely different than what I was expecting from a financial services firm. It was very laid back. The people were very hard working but they knew how to have fun. It wasn’t as rigid as most people would have expected. I went to work for the first couple of weeks in business suit and tie and they said, Ray, if you want to wear khakis, go right ahead. It was a very calm environment and it wasn’t as stressful as I thought it would have been. I enjoyed it.
“I learned that you can never underestimate the power of teamwork. I learned a lot from my organizational behavior classes at ILR – how to work with teams and how to deal with different issues. But when you are working in an environment where you are dealing with millions of dollars and having to pull different groups of people together in order to be effective, I learned how to do that on a different level. I learned it in theory at ILR and at UBS Financial Services I learned how to put that into practice.
“It showed me how to work as a member of a team. You learn things in class, but when you actually experience it and see what kind of an effect it will have, you then begin to see how things are addressed.
“I came to Cornell and ILR thinking I was going to be a lawyer. My mind was set on law school, but now that I have seen a little of the banking world, I might decide to explore that possibility first. It has opened my eyes to what my career opportunities can be. I don’t have to be strictly human resources or law. I can go over to the banking side and then switch back over if necessary. That has been a valuable lesson that I learned this summer.
“One of the things that I learned from my summer internship, and I think that most students should learn by the end of the summer, is that you need to figure out how to effectively work with the presidents, senior vice presidents as well as the administrative assistants and the mail room staff in the organization.
“There are different kinds of conversations that have to take place. One of the things I learned at the ILR School that I ended up putting into practice is learning how to maintain a very comfortable conversation with people from all levels – figuring out what the lingo is and how to be professional while maintaining my own integrity.
“Be as conscientious at work as you would be a hard worker in the classroom. As long as it translates in the classroom—in terms of your hard work—it is the same thing in the business world. People respect your hard work, your desire and your drive more than they respect anything else. Learn how to work diligently and efficiently as a team member as well as individually. These are some of the things I was able to put into practice this summer.”
