State Farm Research Center
Encyclopedia
The State Farm Research and Development Center opened in January 2005 at the University of Illinois
’ Research Park. State Farm
has been involved in academic programming, student assistance and research at U of I for over 35 years, but this facility allows for a captive audience of college intern
s working on projects to benefit the company as a whole, while students get to apply what they learn in class to real business problems.
’s Corporate Headquarters making it easy to communicate back and forth on projects. This location allows State Farm
associates to interact with the campus community and provide real-world education opportunities to students. The RDC houses three main departments or areas. The Strategic Resources department works with corporate research functions, Systems works with information technology
, and Actuary works with pricing insurance. There are also interns working in the MAGNet program.
The Research & Development Center hires University of Illinois
students for fall, spring, and summer intern
ships from a variety of majors and backgrounds. The RDC started with 16 intern
s and four full-time staff members, but has expanded to house up to 70 intern
s and 14 full-time staff . Some of the majors that have been employed at the RDC are Computer Science
, Accountancy
, Engineering
, Actuarial Science
, Mathematics
, Finance
, Economics
, Media Studies
, Communication
, Advertising
, Marketing
, Business Administration, Urban Planning
, Political Science
, and Psychology
. The RDC paid intern
ship runs part-time
around 10-15 hours/week during the fall and spring semesters, and full-time in the summer.
In January 2007, State Farm
was announced as a Private Sector Partner for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
(NCSA) located at U of I. Intern
s began working Research Center intern
ships located at NCSA the following summer and continue on today.
In the fall of 2009 the Research & Development Center underwent a major expansion adding over 8600 square feet (799 m²).
business issues through MAGNet, short for the Modeling and Analytic Graduate Network. Students in MAGNet are expected to enroll in a new master’s curriculum created via a relationship between State Farm and the U of I’s Statistics Department. MAGNet is similar to a 50% graduate assistantship as students work at the Research & Development Center 20 hours per week during academic semesters and receive a pay rate similar to that of graduate assistants at the university. Students are also offered tuition assistance while working in MAGNet. Those staying on in the summer will work full time
and receive higher pay. Interested students apply in the fall of their senior year and begin work the summer before their graduate program
begins.
ship. The CCF is said to be one of the most state-of-the-art outbound call facilities in the country. The center collects consumer research
via phone and online surveys. Hiring processes for the CCF are conducted through Spherion
(spherioncareers.com).
selected State Farm
as one of the top 100 workplaces for information technology (IT) professionals in its 2008 rankings. Research completed at the Research & Development Center is cited as one of the major reasons to work there.
This year's rankings were based on a comprehensive questionnaire regarding company offerings in categories such as benefits, diversity, career development
, training, and retention. In addition to this year’s company portion of the survey, Computerworld randomly surveyed employees to collect data on employee satisfaction with management, benefits, workplace culture, compensation, and job duties.
This is the second year in a row State Farm
has been named in these rankings.
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
’ Research Park. State Farm
State Farm Insurance
State Farm Insurance is a group of insurance and financial services companies in the United States. The company also has operations in Canada....
has been involved in academic programming, student assistance and research at U of I for over 35 years, but this facility allows for a captive audience of college intern
Intern
Internship is a system of onthejob training for white-collar jobs, similar to an apprenticeship. Interns are usually college or university students, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. They may also be as young as middle school or in...
s working on projects to benefit the company as a whole, while students get to apply what they learn in class to real business problems.
Departments and Majors
The Research & Development Center (RDC) is located about 50 miles (80.5 km) from State FarmState Farm Insurance
State Farm Insurance is a group of insurance and financial services companies in the United States. The company also has operations in Canada....
’s Corporate Headquarters making it easy to communicate back and forth on projects. This location allows State Farm
State Farm Insurance
State Farm Insurance is a group of insurance and financial services companies in the United States. The company also has operations in Canada....
associates to interact with the campus community and provide real-world education opportunities to students. The RDC houses three main departments or areas. The Strategic Resources department works with corporate research functions, Systems works with information technology
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
, and Actuary works with pricing insurance. There are also interns working in the MAGNet program.
The Research & Development Center hires University of Illinois
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
The University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign is a large public research-intensive university in the state of Illinois, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Illinois system...
students for fall, spring, and summer intern
Intern
Internship is a system of onthejob training for white-collar jobs, similar to an apprenticeship. Interns are usually college or university students, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. They may also be as young as middle school or in...
ships from a variety of majors and backgrounds. The RDC started with 16 intern
Intern
Internship is a system of onthejob training for white-collar jobs, similar to an apprenticeship. Interns are usually college or university students, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. They may also be as young as middle school or in...
s and four full-time staff members, but has expanded to house up to 70 intern
Intern
Internship is a system of onthejob training for white-collar jobs, similar to an apprenticeship. Interns are usually college or university students, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. They may also be as young as middle school or in...
s and 14 full-time staff . Some of the majors that have been employed at the RDC are Computer Science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, Accountancy
Accountancy
Accountancy is the process of communicating financial information about a business entity to users such as shareholders and managers. The communication is generally in the form of financial statements that show in money terms the economic resources under the control of management; the art lies in...
, Engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
, Actuarial Science
Actuarial science
Actuarial science is the discipline that applies mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in the insurance and finance industries. Actuaries are professionals who are qualified in this field through education and experience...
, Mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
, Finance
Finance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
, Economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
, Media Studies
Media studies
Media studies is an academic discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history and effects of various media; in particular, the 'mass media'. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but mostly from its core disciplines of mass...
, Communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
, Advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
, Marketing
Marketing
Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...
, Business Administration, Urban Planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
, Political Science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...
, and Psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
. The RDC paid intern
Intern
Internship is a system of onthejob training for white-collar jobs, similar to an apprenticeship. Interns are usually college or university students, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. They may also be as young as middle school or in...
ship runs part-time
Part time
A part-time job is a form of employment that carries fewer hours per week than a full-time job. Workers are considered to be part time if they commonly work fewer than 30 or 35 hours per week...
around 10-15 hours/week during the fall and spring semesters, and full-time in the summer.
Expansion
In 2006, the Research Center facility doubled in size, to nearly 6000 square feet (557.4 m²). 2007 saw more growth as the Center for Consumer Feedback opened adding another 3400 square feet (315.9 m²).In January 2007, State Farm
State Farm Insurance
State Farm Insurance is a group of insurance and financial services companies in the United States. The company also has operations in Canada....
was announced as a Private Sector Partner for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is an American state-federal partnership to develop and deploy national-scale cyberinfrastructure that advances science and engineering. NCSA operates as a unit of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign but it provides high-performance...
(NCSA) located at U of I. Intern
Intern
Internship is a system of onthejob training for white-collar jobs, similar to an apprenticeship. Interns are usually college or university students, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. They may also be as young as middle school or in...
s began working Research Center intern
Intern
Internship is a system of onthejob training for white-collar jobs, similar to an apprenticeship. Interns are usually college or university students, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. They may also be as young as middle school or in...
ships located at NCSA the following summer and continue on today.
In the fall of 2009 the Research & Development Center underwent a major expansion adding over 8600 square feet (799 m²).
MAGNet
Students have an opportunity to apply analytical skills to State FarmState Farm Insurance
State Farm Insurance is a group of insurance and financial services companies in the United States. The company also has operations in Canada....
business issues through MAGNet, short for the Modeling and Analytic Graduate Network. Students in MAGNet are expected to enroll in a new master’s curriculum created via a relationship between State Farm and the U of I’s Statistics Department. MAGNet is similar to a 50% graduate assistantship as students work at the Research & Development Center 20 hours per week during academic semesters and receive a pay rate similar to that of graduate assistants at the university. Students are also offered tuition assistance while working in MAGNet. Those staying on in the summer will work full time
Full time
Full-time employment is employment in which the employee works the full number of hours defined as such by his/her employer. Full-time employment often comes with benefits that are not typically offered to part-time, temporary, or flexible workers, such as annual leave, sickleave, and health...
and receive higher pay. Interested students apply in the fall of their senior year and begin work the summer before their graduate program
Graduate school
A graduate school is a school that awards advanced academic degrees with the general requirement that students must have earned a previous undergraduate degree...
begins.
Center for Consumer Feedback
Another portion of the Research & Development Center is the Center for Consumer Feedback (CCF). This part of the Research & Development Center mostly hires students or community members on a part-time basis and not as part of an internIntern
Internship is a system of onthejob training for white-collar jobs, similar to an apprenticeship. Interns are usually college or university students, but they can also be high school students or post graduate adults seeking skills for a new career. They may also be as young as middle school or in...
ship. The CCF is said to be one of the most state-of-the-art outbound call facilities in the country. The center collects consumer research
Marketing research
Marketing research is "the function that links the consumer, customer, and public to the marketer through information — information used to identify and define marketing opportunities and problems; generate, refine, and evaluate marketing actions; monitor marketing performance; and improve...
via phone and online surveys. Hiring processes for the CCF are conducted through Spherion
Spherion
SFN Group, Inc is a North American temporary work agency headquartered in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, that operates under a variety of brand names.-History:Spherion was first known as City Car Unloaders, a Chicago company created by Leroy Dettman in 1946....
(spherioncareers.com).
Name Change
In the second half of 2009 the State Farm Research Center officially changed its name to the State Farm Research and Development Center. The addition of "and Development" came about from a natural evolution in the work being done at the research center. When founded in 2005, most interns produced whitepapers based on Internet and other types of research. However, by 2009 research center interns were also frequently involved in developing application prototypes. The focus had shifted from pure research activities to research and development.Recognition
ComputerworldComputerworld
Computerworld is an IT magazine that provides information for senior IT leaders. It is published in many countries around the world under the same or similar names. Its publisher is International Data Group. Computerworld serves the needs of IT management via print and online...
selected State Farm
State Farm Insurance
State Farm Insurance is a group of insurance and financial services companies in the United States. The company also has operations in Canada....
as one of the top 100 workplaces for information technology (IT) professionals in its 2008 rankings. Research completed at the Research & Development Center is cited as one of the major reasons to work there.
This year's rankings were based on a comprehensive questionnaire regarding company offerings in categories such as benefits, diversity, career development
Career development
In organizational development , the study of career development looks at:*how individuals manage their careers within and between organizations and,...
, training, and retention. In addition to this year’s company portion of the survey, Computerworld randomly surveyed employees to collect data on employee satisfaction with management, benefits, workplace culture, compensation, and job duties.
This is the second year in a row State Farm
State Farm Insurance
State Farm Insurance is a group of insurance and financial services companies in the United States. The company also has operations in Canada....
has been named in these rankings.