Tech Intern Spends Summer at McDonald's Corporate

When Alex Hance ’16 applied for his summer internship, he was asked a peculiar question.

“What is your favorite menu item at McDonald’s?” he said. (The answer was the grilled chicken sandwich.)

For this particular internship, it was less of a peculiarity. Hance is spending the summer at McDonald’s global headquarters in Illinois working in the technology services department. It was an opportunity he found through a LinkedIn post, and as an entrepreneurship and management information systems double major, he is getting his hands dirty.

“I’m able to meet and connect with the other interns and employees within McDonald’s corporate, both personally and professionally,” he said. “Professionally, one of the most beneficial portions of the internship for me is experiencing what different careers in technology might look like and picking up new skills in the field.”

College graduates with experience have a competitive edge over those who do not, a theme well understood by many of Associate Professor Kenneth Knapp’s information and technology management students.

“I have heard over and over again from our graduates that their internship helped get them the best job,” said Knapp, also the director of cybersecurity programs. “Employers often desire job candidates with experience, which can be a challenge for many college graduates in finding their first post-college job; an internship essentially solves that problem.”

Hance spends much of the day in project meetings reviewing updates and collaborative efforts. The rest of his time is spent on individual projects like creating a dashboard to view the current status of certain projects within his department, and completing various parts of the intern project, he said.

“This summer, all of the interns within my department are working on a project to evaluate three McDonald’s restaurants in addition to 10 competitor restaurants,” said Hance, of Ridgefield, CT. “We’ve designed a set of criteria and will start going to all of the restaurants over the course of the next month to get lunch and carry out the evaluations. At the end of July, we’re going to analyze the results and present our findings.”

Hance said one of the perks has been participating in taste panels to give feedback on potential new menu items, and in the main building on campus there is a McDonald’s restaurant on the top floor, “a McDonald’s in a McDonald’s.” Hance credits UT for helping prepare him well for this internship.

“Many of the skills that helped me get the internship and progress through a lot of the projects I’m working on have come from classes I’ve taken at UT or presentations and meetings with the very helpful staff in Career Services,” he said.

When Hance returns to UT in the fall, he’ll be entering his senior year with thoughts of graduation not far off. He isn’t settled on a career choice, but he said he is considering something in the technology consulting industry, potentially with a focus on information security.

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