Nicholas Merke

1234 Knox Road

College Park, MD, 20740

04 November 2022

Wahab Jilani, Program Manager for the Central Maryland Summer Games
Booz Allen Hamilton
304 Sentinel Drive
Annapolis Junction, MD 20701

Dear Mr. Jilani,

I really enjoyed participating in the Summer Games during my internship in the summer of 2022. I
learned a lot and was really impressed with how the internship was run! I do however think that it could
be improved. I have written a proposal that details two ways that the internship in general could be
improved. I believe that these improvements could not only put this internship even more ahead of its
competitors but also attract more or better talent to apply.

This report explores two ways that the internship could be improved. First, since the selection process for
this internship finishes so early you could have students submit their own projects beforehand and make
projects around those or pick from some genuinely interesting ones. The Second improvement if the first
is not to your liking would be to have a large list of projects and have students choose which ones they
would like to work on along with some sorting of skills.

Thank you for taking the time to read this report. I believe that the solutions offered in this proposal will
improve the internship experience at Booz Allen Hamilton and further get people interested in the
company. After reading the document, please contact me at nicholas.merke@gmail.com. I look forward
to working with you on improvements in the Booz Allen Hamilton Summer Games Internship.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Merke

1
 Evaluating Various Methods of Improving
The Booz Allen Hamilton Summer Games Internship

Nicholas Merke
Booz Allen Hamilton
Prepared for Wahab Jilani, Program Manager for the Central Maryland Summer Games

2
 Table of Contents

I. Introduction Page 4

II. Literature Review and Available Models Page 6

III. Analysis and Synthesis Page 8

IV. Proposed Solution Page 10

V. Conclusion Page 12

VI. Works Cited Page 13

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 Introduction and Context

As you already know, Booz Allen Hamilton is a globally active contracting and

consulting firm for a multitude of different clients. The central maryland division is more

specialized to work in the field of government contracts for our customers. Many times when a

contract is given out to be bid on Booz Allen Hamilton does not have much say on what needs to

be completed, only that there is a contract that needs to be done. Once Booz Allen Hamilton

wins that contract they assign a team to it. The team may be picked based on their individual

skills or experience with past projects. If someone is very front end focused they could be more

likely to be placed on a contract that includes making a user interface. If the person is more

backend focused they wou;ld be more likely placed on a team to create a database. Overall this

follows the flow of how Booz Allen Hamilton takes on a project, Booz Allen Hamilton wins a

contract that they did not come up with but took on instead, a team is assigned to this project

which usually is picked based on skills and amount of free time, and that team works on the

project until the completion of the contract. This format was mirrored almost exactly for the

Booz Allen Hamilton Summer Games 2022 internship that I was a part of.

During the summer of 2022 I joined Booz Allen Hamilton as an intern in their summer

games internship. It started out with me applying for the internship back in the fall of 2021. I was

soon brought on for an interview where they evaluated my individual skills. I was thanked for

my time and eventually extended an offer for the internship. After accepting the internship, I did

not hear much back until my start date since I already had my clearance. Around my start date I

was finally told what my project was going to be. This followed the general idea of how the

employees at Booz Allen Hamilton feel when joining as their skills are initially evaluated, then

chosen for a project. This does differ in some aspects as actual employees tend to interview for

4
individual contracts after being hired as opposed to being assigned to one immediately. After I

found out about the project I was assigned to I looked at it and found that it was a very useful

project but not all that interesting.

The project was to create a Software Bill of materials Generator. This project was

recently mandated to exist by executive order earlier this year stating that every federal contract

must have a list of external software packages attached to it in order to remain compliant.

Without this project any contract with the government could be rendered void at any time

(Executive). Something this important was not only left up to us interns as our mentor had been

working on his own version of this already and was mostly complete. The usefulness of the

project is apparent as Booz Allen Hamilton would not be able to function without some version

of this project. Other internships seem to take similar routes having usefulness be the topic of

interest, even if that usefulness is not always the most interesting.

5
 Literature Review and Available Models

Looking at Booz Allen Hamiltion’s competitors we can see what the normal government

contracting internships entail. Starting with a close competitor of Booz Allen Hamilton in the

contracting space SAIC. According to their own job postings, their internships they say you can,

“begin your career learning and developing an invaluable skillset in the technology industry,

while providing meaningful contributions to our DoD customers” (SAIC). Northrop grumman

which is also another government contracting company included a statement from a former

intern on their internship career page stating “The ability to have direct impact on a program that

supports warfighters convinced him to join Northrop Grumman’s Professional Development

Program after his internship” (Yette). Lockeed Martin is even another defense contractor with a

very similar message making the statement that interns “start their careers in a meaningful way:

serving an important mission that supports innovative breakthroughs. All internships and co-ops

offer the chance to gain real-world experience” (Lockheed). Last but not least another

government contractor named Deloitte. They have an internship where you have “an opportunity

to experience what it’s like to work in professional services and take on roles similar to those of

a full-time hire” (Deloitte). Looking at all of these contracting companies there seems to be a

pattern. All of them advertise and run their internships with working on actual government

contracts. Not as much as a full time worker would be but still you are completing actual work

and getting real work experience not in a simulated way. Now by taking a look at Booz Allen

Hamilton’s website we can see something different. Booz Allen Hamilton describes their

internship as an “internship that simulates a real-world startup accelerator while being a fun,

summer-long competition” (Booz Allen Hamilton). This is not the same as Booz Allen

6
Hamilton’s competitors. This is a unique way of doing a government contracting internship and

that can pay off if the uniqueness is overall better than the standard format.

Reviews are a good way to decide on an internship so they would be a good way to see

how people feel about this internship. Looking at Glassdoor we can see three reviews that have a

similar message to them about what the faults were in the internship experience at Booz Allen

Hamilton. First from an intern during the summer of 2021, “You usually don't work on anything

with much value or impact, and things can get pretty slow or stuck for long periods of time”

(Solid Consulting Experience). Second from an intern during the summer of 2022 “Not much

choice in project as I recall...maybe you can choose your general field?” (Great Experience).

Lastly from an intern during the summer of 2020, “Project can be something you don't enjoy,

just depends on where you get placed” (Great Internship). From the titles of the reviews they are

mostly positive but from the quotes it can be seen that they all have the same thing wrong with

them, the projects.

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 Analysis and Synthesis

So the problem is the projects, but what specifically about the projects? Also how does

Booz Allen Hamiltion’s internship uniqueness play into this as well? Looking at the quotes from

the reviews again it can be seen that the lack of choice and the simulated nature of the problems

is actually providing a level of negative experience for the interns. The first quote is talking

about how since the project is simulated, the interns do not feel like they are working on

something the company values and since this is not something the company values the full time

workers are not very responsive to the interns. This is something that I do not think should

change directly as opposed to the other companies listed Booz Allen Hamilton does not have

many opportunities that are below the top secret clearance level, so the interns are not able to

work on any actual contracts or similar contracts because of their secrecy. The nature of the

clearance work also comes into play with communication between the interns and the full time

workers as the full time workers cannot communicate with the interns unless they are outside of

a secure area which they are not often outside of one during the work day. Booz Allen

Hamilton’s uniqueness ends up being a weakness in this regard but is not only a weakness. The

benefit comes from the interns ability to see their project through to completion. Looking at the

competitors of Booz Allen Hamilton the interns are working on real projects but rarely is a

project actually started and completed in a summer so Booz Allen Hamilton gets you that

experience. The second and third quote both talk about how there is a chance for the project you

are put on to be something you do not like or have any interest in. The goal of an internship from

a company's perspective is to evaluate potential employees and try to get the ones you like to

come back as a full time worker. When an intern works on a project they do not like they have a

negative perception of the company and the type of work that it does. The project I was put on

8
was very useful even to the point of winning the best project competition for 2022, but not very

fun. I end up having the most fun when I am trying something new or developing things in areas

I already have interest in. I already had a lot of experience in the areas of my project, did not

learn very much, and was developing a solution that I had no interest in. From this analysis it can

be seen that the main problems with this internship experience are the facts that the interns have

no choice over their project and they feel like the project is not high enough value or worth their

time.

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 Proposed Solution

The solution to these proposed problems would be to either allow the intern to submit

their own mini project proposal beforehand, have a large list of projects that the students could

vote on and select from, or have a combination of the two. Looking at the first solution, this

would be more focused on solving the problem of interns being interested in their project and

having an internship where no one feels bored or like they got a project that was less fun than

another. There would still be some people who would get placed manually since not every

person could be on their own project but the amount of people who get placed on projects they

did not like would be reduced. The other solution would be to have a large list of projects sent

out to the interns that they could vote on so that only the projects with the greatest amount of

interest would be picked. This would also help with the problem of being placed on a project that

the interns would not like with the guarantee that the project is on the desired level of the

internship by the mentors. The best option would be to have a combination between the two that

takes the best parts of both solutions. Starting with the interns submitting their proposed projects,

then a list gets sent out of all of the proposed projects along with some projects that the mentors

came up with that is then voted on by the interns. The mentors would still have to pick which

people are on which teams since some people do have different skills than others and there is not

enough time in the internship for people to learn entirely new things like someone learning

backend development if they have only ever worked on the front end. This could be even

cheaper than the normal way of doing things as normally all of the mentors need to come up with

their own projects and prove that their ideas are feasible while this can be offloaded to the

students whose time is not normally used for things paid for by the company. This solution

would take a bit more vetting however since every idea must be approved by the leadership in

10
order for it to be an actual project, meaning it cannot be too hard to complete in 10 weeks or too

easy making it not worth 10 weeks of work. The best way to combat this would be sending some

example projects and proposals for the students to base their projects off of so that they can

follow more of a templated approach and have things made a bit easier. This also might take a bit

more time as normally the projects are submitted, then students are assigned, and finally the

mentors are assigned. Now the process would be to assign interns the proposal assignment, vet

the proposals, send out a survey to see what projects are the most interesting, pick from those

projects which are the best, assign the members, and finally assign the mentors. Assigning the

mentors would also take additional time since they would need to see which mentors are better

skilled in each new project. This time delay would ultimately server to better the internship

which would better retain key talent and improve the quality of recruitment at Booz Allen

Hamilton.

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 Conclusion

In conclusion, allowing the students to submit their own project ideas, having a large

survey type list that the students can vote for their favorite projects, or having a combination of

the two would be the best solution to Booz Allen Hamilton having the best internship it can in

order for it to retain talent. Interns submitting their own project ideas is the best way to help

reduce the amount of people that feel like what they are working on is not interesting or

important and interns choosing from a large survey like list is the best way to ensure that they

have the most control over what project they are going to be placed on. After participating in the

Booz Allen Hamilton summer games in 2022 I would have been much happier with the

internship if it started with either of these solutions.

12
 Works Cited

“Solid Consulting Experience.” Glassdoor.com,

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Booz-Allen-Hamilton-

RVW45561365.htm.

This is a review submitted by a former intern of Booz Allen Hamilton that talks about

how there are good levels of autonomy inside the internship itself. They also talk about

how they do not feel like the projects they worked on mattered a lot and there was very

little visibility about the projects before the start date.

“Internships.” Deloitte United States, 13 Sept. 2021,

https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/careers/articles/join-deloitte-internships.html

This is an article detailing the internship at a competing company to Booz Allen

Hamilton, Deloitte. The article talks about how you get to work on "real life" projects that

are faced by the company today. Along with this they boast about networking

opportunities within the company as part of the experience.

“Great Experience for a Young Student Looking for Direction.” Glassdoor.com,

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Booz-Allen-Hamilton-

RVW44809378.htm.

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 This is a review submitted by a former intern of Booz Allen Hamilton that talks about

how Booz Allen Hamilton has a good work environment and pays well for the field, but

they also talk about how the con to joining the summer games internship is not inability

to choose their own project.

Lockheed Martin - Internships, https://www.lockheedmartinjobs.com/internships.

This is an article detailing the internship at a competing company to Booz Allen

Hamilton, Lockheed Martin. It starts off with talking about how the work is on real

projects that the company is working on at the time. They claim that you make a real

impact on their contracts.

“Booz Allen's Summer Games: More than an Internship.” Booz Allen Hamilton,

https://www.boozallen.com/careers/university-talent/summer-games-more-than-an-

internship.html.

This is an article from Booz Allen Hamilton's official site that talks about their summer

games internship program. This site talks about what the internship entails along with the

reasons you should apply.

“Executive Order on Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity.” The White House,

The United States Government, 12 May 2021, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-

room/presidential-
14
 actions/2021/05/12/executive-order-on-improving-the-nations-cybersecurity/.

Among other things, this is an executive order mandated by the white house stating that

all federal contracts need to have a software bill of materials attached to their deliverables

in order to remain compliant and have their contracts remain non void.

“Great Internship.” Glassdoor.com,

https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Booz-Allen-Hamilton-

RVW34759939.htm.

This is a review submitted by a former intern of Booz Allen Hamilton that talks about

how the summer games internship is a great way to learn about the company and

network. They also talk about how the cons to working there are the inability to choose

your project and you may be placed in something you do not enjoy.

“Wahab Jilani”, Booz Allen Hamilton,

https://www.boozallen.com/e/bio/professionals/wahab-jilani.html.

This is a site that talks about the head of the summer games for the Central Maryland

division of Booz Allen Hamilton, Wahab Jilani. The site talks about how he became a

software engineer at Booz Allen Hamilton and how he helps run the internship program.

Yette, Laila. “Internships at Northrop Grumman – Learning by Doing.” Northrop Grumman,

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 10 May 2022, https://www.northropgrumman.com/life-at-northrop-grumman/internships-

at-

northrop-grumman-learning-by-doing/.

This is an article detailing the internship at a competing company to Booz Allen

Hamilton, Northrop Grumman. It starts off with talking about how the work is on real

projects that the company is working on at the time. They do not choose their projects but

are put on actual contracts for the company.

“Software Engineer Internship.” SAIC,

https://jobs.saic.com/jobs/11002236-software-engineer-internship

This is an internship application detailing the internship at a competing company to Booz

Allen Hamilton, SAIC. The entire job description talks about writing code along with

testing and debugging other projects.

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