“Companies are always looking to hire the individual with the most related experience. How do students gain this experience? Internships are how,” says Joe Jenkins, a business career specialist in the Comprehensive Business Advising Center at the Girard School of Business.
Pick a major – accounting, finance, management, sport management, and marketing – and you can find a student enjoying an internship in that field this semester. Here are a few examples:
“The biggest surprise has been the amount of responsibility they give interns. I work on projects that are directly related to clients. I’ve done reconciliations for various clients to determine the variances and account for them. I do reconciliations under the limited partner services department, and it deals with cash flows and market values. I have also completed a competitor analysis to compare State Street’s competition within alternative investment solutions.
“The most important lesson I have learned is attention to detail and always being exact with the work I do. State Street expects the highest quality of work and complete accuracy from their employees, and interns are no exception. This has shaped my attitude toward my work, and pushed me to take more pride in it. The amount of time I spend with each project has grown along with my attention to detail.”
Barbara De Almeida ’17, an accounting and finance major is working for Ernst & Young in Boston.
“I have been assigned to clients, mostly banks and hedge funds, where I work with groups on different projects. The projects include preparing and auditing tax provisions, preparing tax compliance workbooks, preparing and filing extensions and tax returns, as well as calculating the allocation of tax liability and preparing K-1s to each individual partner in the hedge funds.
“The biggest surprise has been the freedom that I have to make my own schedule as well as work from home if I feel like it. Tasks are given to me on a schedule telling me the date I need to pass my work on to be reviewed and the date the reviewer will get back to me with comments. So it is up to me when, where, and how I work on those. The most important lesson I learned was to be proactive. Reaching out to ask for what needs to be done beforehand and doing research during down time to learn more about the upcoming project goes a long way.”
“In my role, I essentially form a basic understanding of a company’s organization and put it into a map that explains major initiatives, changes, and trends within that company. With this information, we form a company map, which comes with confirmed contact names and titles. We can then sell that map to our clients who wish to sell into a specific company, or we can use it in-house as a way to share our products with prospects. I am responsible for both the mapping of a company and the confirmed contacts within that company.
“The most important lesson I have learned is: always be willing to push yourself. Balancing all the different areas of life can be complicated, but when you can do it well, the results show clearly. This was shown when I was interviewing with BAO and they saw all the things I was involved with and maintaining already.”
Kevin Perdios ’17, a sport management major, is an intern at New England Sports Network (NESN) in Watertown, working in sports information programming.
“As corny as it may sound, every day has been pretty fun and exciting just because you never know who will walk in the door or walk past your desk while at NESN. The most fun I had was the day I met Tom Caron (who hosts the pre- and post- game Boston Red Sox shows and broadcasts college hockey) just because I watched him as a kid, so it had that surreal feeling to it.
“The biggest surprise of this internship would definitely be just how much craziness goes on behind the scenes, even to just get a 30-minute show together. As much as you want to finish tasks quickly, it is also important to pay attention to details, no matter how little the details might be.”
“I am helping the human resources and information systems department with a project, barcoding employee documents for them to be scanned into a system called Documentum. The project is barcoding and quality control of employee files, which requires paying extreme attention to detail and keeping all information confidential. As for the recruiting side of HR, I will be working on college recruitment to check and confirm employee references.
“The most fun I’ve had at work so far was when the HR team gathered for a luncheon because they had won a contest. For lunch we had pizza from Regina Pizzeria in Boston and for dessert we had cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake. It was the first time I got to meet the entire team and socialize with them.
“The most important lesson I have learned is to go above and beyond expectations and show up every day with a good attitude. The project I was assigned to do took me about 15 days to complete, which they were expecting would take much longer. It may have been tedious, but I worked extremely hard and paid close attention to detail to finish in a timely manner.”
“I work mostly on the commercial side of preparing tax returns (so for S Corps, C Corps, and partnerships), but I do get the occasional individual return as well. The most fun I’ve had is at company outings. After our two-week training the entire office went out bowling one night after work. It was a great time to get to know everyone in the office, even the other interns. That same day I also got to go visit a client and learned more about different forms and work papers. It’s fun to get out of the office and interact with clients one-on-one. It makes it more personable, and when you’re doing their tax return you remember their face and it’s not just another return that you get caught up with and then forget.
“I’ve had to learn major time management: time management to get projects done and balance a full plate with multiple projects in one day, as well as in my personal life and my other two jobs on campus. I’ve had to learn about getting out of my comfort zone and networking and communicating with colleagues at work as well as with clients, which will really help me when I’m looking for a full-time job after graduation and down the road in my career.”
