My name is Paphawarintr Tienpasertkij (Mind, for short) and I am a third-year Accounting and Management Information Systems student at Rochester Institute of Technology, Saunders College of Business.
During the Summer of 2018, I had an amazing opportunity to co-op at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Jaiyos Advisory Co., Ltd. as a Strategy and Operations consultant intern in Bangkok, Thailand. Throughout this internship, I had the chance to experience various projects. I was involved with projects for different industries, including consumer goods, telecommunications and restaurants. Over these industries, the projects varied from researching existing policies to evaluating the key performance measurements based on the industry to creating an as-is workflow. Because of the various projects I was on, I gained an incredible amount of knowledge in the consulting industry.
In addition to a great career opportunity, I also gained personal connections and friendships with my co-workers. In my opinion, having a company culture that you feel completely comfortable in is amazing. My favorite memories with my coworkers were made during lunchtime or after office hours. Through working long hours, I was able to gain a lot of advice from my co-workers. Moreover, I loved the management style they had at Deloitte. They made me feel completely comfortable to ask questions to whoever was available - this included co-workers from other project teams, managers and even the partners. Leaving this internship, it felt like graduating. I'd gained so many friendships, but I had to continue my studies at RIT.
I not only gained valuable friends with my co-workers, I also obtained more knowledge about the Thai culture. I was born in Bangkok, Thailand; however, I moved to Portland, Oregon when I was 13, so there were certain cultural aspects that I wasn't used to. Luckily, most of my co-workers also had international experience in the United States. Through this understanding, we were able to discuss many differences between the two cultures whether it be the concept of family, marriage, college and much more.
Being a part of the International Fraternity of Delta Sigma Pi gave me an amazing chance to meet a fellow brother from Iota Sigma Chapter at University of Evansville. I joined the Delta Sigma Pi Thailand Facebook group and saw his post about getting brothers together. Because our offices were near each other, we decided to grab lunch one day. We had plenty to talk about Delta Sigma Pi and our jobs as consultants.
In addition to the work experience, I also got to enjoy the sights of Thailand. I traveled to Chiang Mai (northern Thailand), Koh Samui (southern Thailand), and Ayutthaya. Through these trips, I learned more about Thai history and culture.