Real World Experience: Andrew Wiehe

By Jamie Lichtenstein, Communications Intern

A summer spent with an internship at GE Appliances taught senior business and enterprise management (BEM) major Andrew Wiehe the importance of confidence and curiosity.

“Going into this internship, I had never worked on such a large-scale forecasting project or worked with a consulting team,” he said. “Despite being faced with new concepts, I jumped into the project and took it as an opportunity to learn something new. Don’t be afraid to ask questions or seek guidance from those around you. No one can know everything, and as an intern, you’re expected to ask questions and be inquisitive.”

At GE Appliances, Wiehe helped with a project to redesign how the company forecasts their business. He conducted analysis to build the new process and helped manage the relationship between the company and a consulting team during the project.

He credits his education at the School of Business for preparing him for this real-world experience. “Wake Forest put me in a very strong position going into this role. While the exact concepts were new to me, I understood the business fundamentals behind them. This allowed me to try to figure things out on my own, or ask the right questions.”

One class that made a difference in his outlook was BEM-375 (Foundations of Capitalism) with professor Page West. “Our class had readings ranging from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged to The Communist Manifesto and The Wealth of Nations. These readings and their ensuing discussions really opened my eyes to why business and markets work the way that they do. They also provided a unique framework for discussing current events in class.”

While he knew he wanted to study business as a first-year student at Wake Forest, Wiehe credits his business studies and internship experiences with helping him better define his career plans. He dabbled with the idea of focusing on business law, but “as I gained more internship experience I realized that finance was the place for me because I really enjoy working with numbers. I elected to remain a BEM major as I valued the well-rounded approach to business that the program provides.”

He plans to pursue a position in corporate finance after graduation.