Deloitte is a competitive and prestigious consulting firm that actively recruits students directly from the College of Information Sciences and Technology at Penn State. With 27 billion dollars a year in revenue, Deloitte has many fantastic opportunities for students majoring in IST and SRA. The Magazine of IST recently had the chance to speak with Prerana Dalal, a recent IST graduate who is now working for Deloitte.

Tell us about your current position and what your responsibilities are. Are there any great perks?

Right now, I’m staffed on a government project where our team is there to work on several initiatives for our clients. This includes Decision Support Services (basically business intelligence as well as data warehousing), New Development (we are building a transactional system that will replace a mainframe system that manages child welfare data), Maintenance and Operations (we have numerous custom applications that we maintain to help support the different program areas), Technology and Infrastructure (our web servers and database servers), and finally Training/Technical Support.

I’m currently working with the Decision Support Services team. Our goal is to provide business users with new ways to access and evaluate the data that we are collecting in order to help make more data driven decisions, using reports, dashboards, etc. This includes ad hoc reporting from the data warehouse and creating a new reporting system for the transactional Child Welfare application.

Which office do you work at and how often to you travel?

I work from the Pittsburgh Office. Although consulting is associated with traveling, I am actually currently staffed on a local project, right here in Pittsburgh. Most other practitioners travel on a weekly basis, working from their client site four to five days a week.

What skills did you learn from IST that have been most helpful in your career with Deloitte thus far?

Problem Solving. IST did a great job of taking a textbook concept and creating a hands-on learning experience where you apply said concepts in a team. Problem-based learning may sound like a well-used term now, but it’s truly the reality. The work place isn’t an exam that has clear-cut multiple-choice answers that you take by yourself. Everything is a problem, and you learn how to work with a group of people who all have different skills and strengths to analyze, assess, ask questions, develop an approach, create the deliverable, and present a solution.

Did you intern or work anywhere other than Deloitte? What was your experience like?

I interned with CIGNA first and then with Deloitte. Both were fantastic experiences where I learned more than I could have ever hoped for. At CIGNA, I worked mostly with Quality Assurance where I tested application modifications. I also had a chance to design, document, and update changes to a CRM application according to business requirements.

Working for Deloitte as an intern allowed me to really understand and experience the life of a consultant. I didn’t make copies or get coffee but was actually expected to fly to my client site on a weekly basis and where I worked with the Project Management Office to develop and automate a dashboard measuring project progress. To top it off, I truly owned the work I did. I was the only person responsible for updating the report, creating new measures to track our progress, and presenting it at the project management meetings. By the end of my internship, it turned into a solid tracking tool used by both Deloitte and our clients, even after my term was complete. How cool is that?

How does your career with Deloitte differ from the other opportunities that you may have passed-over in favor of your current position?

Deloitte is like Baskin Robins: it’s a different flavor every day. There is always something new to try out and no room for boredom. That, in itself, is one of my favorite things about Deloitte. There are just so many opportunities in every industry possible. So, if you find that your current role isn’t the best fit for you, you can move into something completely different. That is the definition of “managing your own career,” something that Deloitte advocates by helping its employees customize the career that they may want.

What tips do you have for IST students who hope to earn a position at Deloitte? What about other industries?

Get involved! Join extracurricular activities, like the many clubs and committees that IST as to offer. It may seem like a hassle at first, but it’s a great way to learn new things, make connections, and network. If nothing else, it helps you figure out what you’re passionate about, which will help you choose the career that’s perfect for you.

What do you wish you had been more prepared for by IST? Is there something students should focus on outside of the classroom in order to prepare for a career with a consulting firm?

Prepare for the unexpected and the incredibly puzzling. Although the projects at IST are a great method for hands-on learning, I’ve bumped into more ups and downs in my 6-month tenure on my current project than in my four years at Penn State. There are always unforeseeable constraints that may pop up and learning how to roll with the punches and adapt to the situation is an art. The more experience you have with it, the quicker you can think on your feet to come up with more than one approach to your problem.

Is there anything else that you would like to share with us?

Live the epitome of “Work Hard, Play Hard.” Put in a full day’s work but never forget to find something you enjoy, if that means watching your favorite TV show, reading a book, or my personal favorite: Ballroom Dancing. The best part of it all? At Deloitte, you can probably find someone who has the same hobbies as you do.