Interview with a Swensen Fellow

Interview with a Swensen Fellow: Mehmed Can Olgac, YC ‘22

Now, I’m understanding the mechanisms of Yale from a perspective that differs from the one I had as a student. I look at the numbers, survey responses, and other data. My job requires me to analyze Yale from a numerical point of view.

-Mehmed Can Olgac

Charnice Hoegnifioh: Can you tell me a little bit about the Swensen Fellowship?

Mehmed Can Olgac: The Swensen Fellowship is a two-year fellowship for Yale graduates from all
schools, not only Yale College graduates. The Office recruits two fellows every year. There are SOM
graduates and Ph.D.s who went on to do the fellowship in previous years. For example, one of my
colleagues Abi just got her Ph.D. in Chemistry before joining this year. That’s the structure!
What Swensen fellows do is work as analysts in the Office of Strategic Analysis, which is an office
within the Office of the Provost. The Office of Strategic Analysis functions like a consulting group
within Yale that serves clients that are part of the University. For example, we work with the Offices of
Financial Aid, Transportation, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Yale College, et cetera. As analysts of the
Swensen Fellowship, we usually have three to five projects that we’re working on at any given moment.
That’s about it!

Charnice: I saw on the Swensen Fellows website that there are a few different positions. Are you
one of the full-time fellows?

Mehmed Can: Yes!

Charnice: Just to double check, does your description of the position apply to the full-time
fellowships, summer internships, or Ph.D. student internships?

Mehmed Can: That’s a wonderful point! You can apply to be a Swensen Fellow and do it as an
internship over the summer or you can also apply for a full-time position if you will be graduating. So, the Swensen Fellowship exists in two forms, either as a full-time job, which is a two-year time
commitment, or as a summer internship, which is a ten-week commitment. During the summer
internship, fellows are engaged with our office and do the same thing as full-time employees, just for
a shorter period of time.

Charnice: Since you said that fellows can be working on anywhere from three to five projects, does
that happen simultaneously? Or do you work on one project for a certain amount of time and then
complete more sequentially one after the other?

Mehmed Can: How do I juggle between three to five projects? The answer to that is working on all of
them simultaneously, which is a good thing. Sometimes, you need data from a client, but the data
collection takes time. Other times, you’re stuck working on one project. It’s really nice to have a bunch
of projects going on so you can jump from one and the other, and when you’re stuck due to reasons
that are not dependent on you, you can just move on with the other projects until you have everything
you need for the project that you are originally working on.

Charnice: What are examples of some of the projects that you have completed or are currently
working on?

Mehmed Can: This is my fourth Friday! It’s the end of my fourth week, so I haven’t yet completed any
projects. I have been working on a couple of projects.
However, I can talk about some of the projects that the Office of Strategic Analysis finished before I
started! One of the projects was about undergraduate math persistence, which supported the
reorganization of the math major introductory course sequence. The Math Department saw that
certain people came here as math majors, but many dropped out at specific points in time. They
wanted to learn about why this was happening. Does dropping the math major happen
disproportionately for certain groups of people? So, the Office of Strategic Analysis got a bunch of data
from the department, analyzed the data, and presented recommendations to make the math major
more accessible to people who want to pursue it.

Charnice: I just saw that project online! The Swensen Fellows’ website has some other completed
projects up on it, which is definitely helpful for anyone applying to get a more concrete sense of
what kinds of work they would be doing.

Mehmed Can: I agree! The website is very informative. So if you go on the website and you spend
maybe five or ten minutes reading it, you will get a basic feeling for what the job entails and what we
do.

Charnice: Well, the next question is not as easily revealed by simply reading the website. What does
a typical day look like for you in this role?

Mehmed Can: Yeah, that’s another wonderful question! We usually come in a couple of minutes
before nine. Each fellow has their own desk and a nice setup. Then, throughout the day we might
have larger team meetings. We might have client meetings. We might have a check-in with our
manager. We collaborate on certain projects, so there are smaller team meetings where a couple of
analysts go into a room and discuss a project that they’re working on together.
Other times we just handle data. We use a lot of R, but some people choose to use Excel. We handle
a lot of data, make a lot of graphs and visuals, and do a lot of research as well. Our work involves a
mixture of research, data analysis, slide creation, and leadership presentations.

Charnice: The research seems to be very data-driven and analytical, so would you describe the work
environment as more independent or collaborative? Especially due to the fact that the Fellows are
using different programs to complete their work.

Mehmed Can: I think the nature of the data analysis we’re doing can be individualistic but is more
collaborative than a software job where from nine to five, you only code at your desk all day. There are
a lot of meetings. It usually depends on the project. If you’re working with another fellow on a project,
then it’s usually collaborative. But even in those cases, sometimes you just divide up the work, and
then it becomes a little more individualistic because you do your part and then you send over the data
analysis. So the other analysts or the other fellow will look at what you sent and complete the analysis
by adding their parts.
Since we work with data, we do a little bit of coding. There are times when you just sit down for like
one or two hours and you just code. The people in our office are really nice and are always willing to
help. So when you’re brainstorming about how to cut the data or how to analyze the data, you do it
together and people give you pointers. Then you bring what you’ve already done to the next meeting,
and they give you a bunch of other feedback. We also work really closely with the Office of
Institutional Research. They are very good with some of these statistical coding platforms, so
sometimes when we get stuck we reach out to them and ask for their help. They’re always willing to
help as well!

Charnice: What are the components of the fellowship, and what skills are you hoping to learn from
this experience?

Mehmed Can: Again, that’s a wonderful question. It’s only been four weeks. We do goal setting with
our manager, and one of the things that I’m really looking forward to is client interactions. We also
have a lot of subscriptions for fellows to learn different statistical languages and coding languages. I
haven’t used any subscriptions yet, but I’m hoping to use those subscriptions to improve my Python
skills and my R skills on the side.
At Yale College, I learned how to write, code, read, and teach myself certain things, but rarely did I
have the chance to present my findings or my projects to people. I didn’t have many opportunities to
explain the graphs or the statistical models that I made to individuals who were genuinely interested
in what the model does or what the model says, as opposed to turning in assignments to a professor
who is focused on the inner workings of the model. So I think those client interactions are things that I’m looking forward to. Yale can be a place where you do a lot of very theoretical work with professors who know much more than you about those theoretical concepts and frameworks, so you don’t have to really explain yourself. You just turn in the project or essay or whatever it is and they grade you. Whereas here, you have to come up with suggestions for your clients that your data analysis will support and justify. You can have the best research and you can have the best charts and you can have the best-written components, but unless you do a great presentation, your analysis is not going to be as well understood as it could or should be. I think that’s how many things work in real life. I’m looking forward to learning how to navigate those situations because it’s obviously very stressful. You have your chance in a meeting, and you have to use it to the fullest extent.

Charnice: So, you are one of the points of contact for the Fall 2022 application cycle. Do you have a main point of contact?

Mehmed Can: Yes! If anyone has any questions, they should reach out to Strategy Associate Sarah Malkowski or Swensen Fellow Sooyong Kwon.

Charnice: Great! Can you share some details on what the onboarding process is like for the Swensen Fellowship? What was your personal experience applying to work in the Office of the Provost?

Mehmed Can: Another great question! I myself had three interviews, and I wasn’t recruited in the fall cycle. I applied in the spring cycle, but there’s only a spring cycle if there are unfilled positions after the fall recruitment. The first interview was with two of the fellows. At the time, there were four full-time fellows. My second interview was with my current manager, Jen Tom, and then my third interview was with Jen’s manager.

Charnice: So I see that online, the desired profile for an applicant is an individual who is intellectually curious, practical and results-oriented, attentive to detail, emotionally intelligent, collaborative, team-oriented, mission-driven, and has strong quantitative skills. Do you think that there are any other skills or experiences that you’re looking for in an ideal candidate?

Mehmed Can: I think that’s a comprehensive list.

Charnice: Do you have any advice for anyone who is applying to be a Swensen Fellow?

Mehmed Can: I really struggled with the case interviews, so if you are going to apply, look at some of the sample projects that the office did to get a better sense of solutions to cases previous fellows have worked on.

Charnice: Can you briefly share what you did before starting the Swensen Fellowship?

Mehmed Can: I went here! I was in Silliman, and I double majored in stats and history. I didn’t do a consulting internship.

Charnice: Why did you decide to apply to the Swensen Fellowship?

Mehmed Can: I think initially I was very enthusiastic about the fact that this position is consulting, so you get to learn what consulting is and how to work on projects. Moreover, the position is very data-driven, which is another thing that I really like. There’s a lot of data that comes from the university that needs to be processed. I was also very happy about the fact that I’d be learning how to communicate with clients and how to present my results. I felt like Yale taught me how to come up with results, but my delivery skills were something that I was lacking. You also work for Yale, and no other clients, which I see as a good thing. Yale’s mission is something that I truly respect, and the university is one of the best institutions of higher education in the world. And through this position, I can work for two years to maybe better inform that mission using data.

Charnice: What is your favorite part so far about being a Swensen Fellow?

Mehmed Can: I think my favorite part is learning more about the different operations within Yale that affected me over the past four years. For example, I’ve been learning how decisions are made both on a smaller scale in departments like the Financial Aid Office and how the university is run in general. Yale is a very big institution, and big institutions need a lot of planning to run smoothly and efficiently. It’s fun for me to see how the people operating Yale think and plan really, really long term. This work isn’t necessarily like saving the day. It’s saving the today in twenty years and thirty years and forty years. Looking at data is really interesting because I, of course, observed and analyzed Yale anecdotally in my daily life over the last four years. Now, I’m understanding the mechanisms of Yale from a perspective that differs from the one I had as a student. I look at the numbers, survey responses, and other data. My job requires me to analyze Yale from a numerical point of view.

Charnice: What would you say is a challenge that you have faced in your job so far, if any at all?

Mehmed Can: A challenge might be that people who are recruited as Swensen Fellows are always people who have recently graduated from one of Yale’s schools. We all have known and experienced Yale and New Haven in an academic context, so when you transition into this job, it’s different from your experience working in any other city. For example, when you go to New York or Chicago to work, there’s a clear distinction in your mind between where you went to school and where you are working. But the lines get a little blurry when you start working in New Haven as opposed to primarily being a Yale student.

Charnice: I have a few more questions for you. What are you most excited about over the next few months?

Mehmed Can: Yale is a very big institution with a lot of different operations going on at the same time. So, we have numerous departments that are our clients like transportation, which deals with shuttles and the vehicles that the university owns, and the Carbon Charge, which is dealing with implementing carbon pricing for the amount of carbon emitted on campus. I’m also looking forward to working with all of these different clients and learning more about what they do, which I think will give me a good idea as to what it is that I want to pursue in my career in the future.

Charnice: And now for the final question! Is there anything else you would like to add, or anything else that you’d want anyone reading to know?

Mehmed Can: I guess one question that people might have who don’t come from a strong data background is whether or not it’s required to have that background. I think some basic knowledge of R and excel is important. But you don’t have to be a stats major to apply to the fellowship. If you’re interested in learning, even though you haven’t had a lot of experience, still go ahead and apply! One of the goals of the program is to teach data handling skills. The Swensen Fellowship is a job, but it’s also a fellowship. The program also focuses on the individual development of the fellows and helping the fellows grow throughout the experience. I also have some advice for international students! If you’re an international student, when you apply to jobs outside of Yale after graduating, it’s typically much harder to be recruited as an international student in comparison to an American citizen. However, the Swensen Fellowship doesn’t consider your citizenship when evaluating your application, so international students are at no disadvantage when they apply. I think that’s really important for international students to know, especially because I applied to so many places and didn’t even receive a response from other companies. The Swensen Fellowship was very straightforward about the fact that they consider all applicants regardless of their citizenship.

Charnice: That was so informative, and I’m sure all prospective candidates will appreciate everything you’ve shared. Thank you so much for allowing me to interview you today! I really appreciate it Mehmed. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation!

Mehmed Can: Thank you so much as well. We covered everything I wanted to go over with you about the Swensen Fellowship today.

Charnice Hoegnifioh: Good luck to anyone reading this who is planning on applying to the Swensen Fellowship!