Internship Spotlight: Nick Zeffiro ’23, Meta
Nick Zeffiro ’23 shared his experiences as a Global Operations intern at Meta.
What did you do this summer? In this series, Laurie Toth asked rising second-year MBA students to check in from their summer internships, where they applied the lessons of their first year at Yale SOM.
Nick Zeffiro ’23
Internship: Global Operations intern, Meta, San Francisco
Hometown: Orange County, California
Pronouns: he/him/his
Clubs and affiliations: Technology Club, Out of Office, Nonprofit Board Fellows
Favorite SOM class: State & Society
Favorite SOM professor: Amy Wrzesniewski
Favorite New Haven eatery: Modern Apizza
Favorite thing you do in New Haven or SOM to unwind: Hiking East Rock
Bonus facts: It’s my goal to explore every building on Yale’s campus before I graduate.
My summer internship is with Meta in their Global Operations group. This organization is tasked with creating a safe environment for more than three billion users as they engage with Meta’s products, ranging from Facebook to WhatsApp, Instagram, and even the rapidly evolving metaverse through their Oculus hardware. I have always been attracted to the intersection of the public and private industries, especially at a global scale, so this internship felt like an excellent way to explore this space and have a tangible positive impact.
This summer I have been building out some of the internal processes that the Global Operations group uses to train their AI models and to develop new products. Specifically, I have been supporting the Instagram and Facebook applications. From the project, I have learned about stakeholder management, cross-functional collaboration, and how to drive impact over a short few weeks. I have also been able to work with Pride@ (Meta’s LGBTQ+ affinity group) to plan its annual Development Summit and am volunteering as a mentor for Meta’s Career Connections program, where they partner with local communities, small businesses, and college student fellows. It’s been a ton of fun!
My favorite thing about the internship has been exploring Meta’s office buildings in San Francisco and its headquarters down in Menlo Park. I will never be over getting breakfast, lunch, and dinner (plus delicious snacks and sweets!) for free every time I go into the office. It definitely makes work from home a little less appealing!
Classes like Global Virtual Teams and Managing Groups and Teams have proved so crucial to my success over this summer, especially as I’m working in as large and distributed an organization as Meta. Some of the employees I have been regularly working with are in London; due to the time change, we have only about one hour of synchronous work time. This makes alignment and clear meeting objectives even more crucial, and I am grateful to have picked up these skills through coursework in the aforementioned classes.
In my free time this summer, I have been able to connect with so many fellow interns in the Bay Area both through work and through the LGBTQ+ community. A group of fellow LGBTQ+ grad students and I regularly explore all the amazing nightlife that the Bay Area has to offer. It has also been fun to explore San Francisco with my fellow SOM peers who have been here this summer—we have made a great effort to get together regularly to continue building community, even outside of New Haven.
Moving to San Francisco and working for Meta were both lofty goals prior to coming to SOM. It has been an amazing summer and I am so grateful for the opportunity!
