While some students view an internship at HMC as a unique way to get exposure to finance early on in college, others, like Henry H. Wang ’15, were drawn to HMC because of a class taught by Stephen Blyth, HMC’s rising CEO and the current managing director and head of public markets.

In the class, Statistics 123: “Applied Quantitative Finance,” Blyth framed the financial concepts from the course in the context of HMC, bringing in his colleagues to talk to the class about their work.

Wang said that the financial education he received in Blyth’s class continued throughout his internship at HMC. Because the internship program at HMC is relatively small and includes underclassmen, interns said that their work schedule was less structured, allowing for close interaction with senior employees and more opportunities to learn.

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Rebecca Y. Hu ’16, a Crimson business editor and an intern at HMC last summer, described the internship as “transparent,” saying she had easy access to her supervisors.

“The internship not necessarily treated us just as employees, but I think also as students,” she said. “There was this unspoken educational aspect to the internship that I really appreciated.”

Hu said that she feels that the open and collaborative nature of the office contributed to the educational experience.

“It was definitely not as intense as internships that my friends pursued over the summer at banks, for example,” she said.

A UNIVERSITY ENDOWMENT

In addition to these unique methods of engaging students, both interns and full-time employees said that the mission of HMC and its connection to Harvard were important parts of why they choose to work there. With endowment returns funding everything from scientific research to financial aid, employees say their work carries a special personal gravity.

Wang said that he valued the opportunity to contribute to the endowment’s mission, given his personal experience as a Harvard student.

“Myself being someone who benefits from [financial aid], being able to work in an environment where I know that the end result of my work ends up going to students like me...was definitely a rewarding experience,” he said.

Wang said he noticed that there was a sense of “people wanting to do good things.”

“And you don’t see that at most financial institutions,” he said.

Current full-time employees echoed the importance of HMC’s mission in their work.