Sam Buckley
STEP Reflection
- Please provide a brief description of your STEP Signature Project. Write two or three sentences describing the main activities your STEP Signature Project entailed.
My STEP signature project was an internship with Regions Financial Corporation in Chicago, Illinois. I was a member of the Income Property Finance division, in which I would financially underwrite developers and investors for our RM’s and Associates to then craft construction and bridge loans.
- What about your understanding of yourself, your assumptions, or your view of the world changed/transformed while completing your STEP Signature Project? Write one or two paragraphs to describe the change or transformation that took place.
This project had arguably the biggest impact on me as both as a person and a professional in my time at Oho State for a multitude of reasons. First, as a person, I have lived my entire in Columbus, Ohio, and the most amount of consecutive days I’ve spent away from the city was previously 14 days. All of a sudden, I had to call the 3rdbiggest city in the country home for over 2 months, while also having to excel as a summer analyst with hopes of being hired fulltime after the internship. Although there were certain difficulties associated with moving to a big city, I found myself able to fully immerse myself in the idea of being a Chicagoan and getting to know my way around the city. Being in a metropolis like Chicago, I also got very comfortable with interacting with people of all different backgrounds. No matter the income level, race, sexual orientation or what have you, Chicago has it all covered.
- What events, interactions, relationships, or activities during your STEP Signature Project led to the change/transformation that you discussed in #2, and how did those affect you? Write three or four paragraphs describing the key aspects of your experiences completing your STEP Signature Project that led to this change/transformation.
Straight off the plane when I moved to Chicago in May, I was tasked with all of my belongings to the train stop, finding my exit stop, navigating the busy streets, and moving my stuff into a new apartment right across the street from the world famous Grant Park. To say the least, that was an experience I’ve never come close to being a part of, aside from moving into college as a freshmen. From there, it was an never ending adventure of meeting new people, both in the work setting and outside of the office.
One of the first events that led to a significant transformation was my internship training for a week in Charlotte, North Carolina. Less than a full week into my move to Chicago, I hopped on another plane and became fully immersed in learning about Regions. I was thrown in with the other 11 Real Estate Interns from 7 different offices nationwide, and the following day met the 30 others from the rest of the corporate bank. I was able to meet fellow college students from all walks of life, bonding over this new adventure and experience we were all going through. It changed my perspective on different parts of the country, and gave me a new appreciation for what an internship program can do for someone. I came out of training with plenty of new connections, as well as friends for the rest of my career.
Another aspect of my STEP project that had a huge impact on me was simply working everyday in the Chicago office. For being a large bank, I was thankful to have a smaller group in Chicago of only 18 people, so I was able to create incredible relationships fairly easy, while also learning from professionals with years (sometimes decades) of experience. We would have a team lunch every Friday in which we’d cross the river and I’d be able to pick the brains of each and every member of the team, while they got to know me better as well. Although the technical side of the job was important to learn quickly, I truly believe the relationships I made in the office are something that I’ll treasure forever, and those same relationships come into play when making a decision later in the project.
- Why is this change/transformation significant or valuable for your life? Write one or two paragraphs discussing why this change or development matters and/or relates to your academic, personal, and/or professional goals and future plans.
This STEP project changed my life in more ways than I could’ve ever imagined. Originally, I viewed my STEP project as a way to get out of Ohio for a summer and hopefully make some money working at a reputable company. Now of course that all played out, but two days before I was scheduled to fly back home to Columbus, I received a call from my boss down at our corporate headquarters. She said I showed a lot traits throughout the summer that they were very excited about, and offered me a full time job in the Strategy vertical of the department I was working in, something very rare for interns. Due to my love of the city, and the incredible people at Regions, both in Chicago and across the country, it wasn’t a hard decision to accept.
Without STEP, the internship wouldn’t have been possible, and therefore I wouldn’t have been afforded this amazing opportunity. Columbus will always be home, but thanks to STEP, I’ll be able to call myself a resident of Chicago for the foreseeable future, which has always been a dream of mine.
