1. 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 unpaid internship at the local Columbus NPR Station, WCBE. The 4-month internship took place from Wednesday, May 1^st 2019 until Saturday, August 31^st 2019. The unpaid internship will be comprised of 20-30 hours of work a week, including duties such as research, content editing, conversion of radio show audio files to MP2 format, online syndication, show synopsis creation, in-person and online 2Rogue team meetings, and other duties as assigned, including promoting 2Rogues media and guest hosting the weekly WCBE90.5 You Inc./YouTune channel show.

2. 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.

In participating in this project, I was able to gain skills integral to my career aspirations, particularly in developing my abilities in researching, critical thinking, editing, technical skills and familiarity with programs, interviewing, and teamwork. I have also gained a great deal of insight into my own passions, skills, and plans for the future. I have spent time testing the learning I have undergone within classes, and I have been able to figure out where the holes in my education primarily lie. This then has brought about a better refinement in my curiosities and greater focus in what kinds of projects and research I want to do before I graduate. Additionally, during this project, I experienced an unexpected challenge with the aspect of simply keeping detailed track of my expenses and collecting receipts. This was valuable in that it forced me to be extensively more mindful about my finances and organized in the process. As I have never kept a checkbook before or intentionally and physically tracked my spending, this was an interesting experience that will play a such a pivotal role in an omnipresent part of my life.

I also have confirmed my passionate intention to continue working with information, processing and manipulating that information, and presenting findings to others in a clear and concise manner. I have better realized my desire to pursue a career at National Geographic, National Public Radio, or some alternative educational platform in which I work with relevant studies, edit research publications, and write interesting educational articles utilizing and conveying that data. Additionally, I have been very fortunate to make connections with similarly-minded students, share my passions with others, and receive feedback on the work I create in my free time. Not only have they driven me to work harder, but their influence has made me a well-rounded person who is comfortable in identifying my multi-faceted interests and in discerning the underlying relation between those interests. By developing relationships outside of this university with individuals who share my passions, I have opened new routes of continuous learning and discovery that will allow this transformative process to be an ongoing one.

3. 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.

There have been several key ways that have specifically led to these aforementioned transformations. By being put in charge of syndication, I learned a great deal about utilizing PRX and the different ways in which radio-and the growing podcast empire as a whole-is delivered to different station, hosts, and listeners. I gained expediency in listening to content and being able to efficiently describe it to both station managers and potential leadership and the difference between the two. In this, I also was able to work on succinctness within writing. As a passionate writer, and paper-writing English major, I often find that my writing style is often comprised of detail-focused elaborations and rich use of vocabulary, rather than using the bare minimum of language to get my point across. The repetitive and extensive task of summarizing episodes helped me work on a skill I rarely have reason to hone, and has aided in developing my background as a writer in a more thorough manner.

           Another aspect of my project in which I was able to advance my skill set was through the opportunity of serving as a guest host for episodes of You Tune and You Inc. Within this role, I was able to execute a number of related duties, including conducting thorough research on a topic or guest, creating thought-provoking and relevant questions for the interview, and meeting individuals who I was to have on the show. I had never been in charge of interviewing individuals, let alone for the purpose of airing the audio on a local NPR station, and found the task interesting yet challenging. I was able to work on my ability to comfortable articulate my thoughts and transfer that to a public speaking role, a skill that will doubtless continue to prove important throughout many of the jobs and leadership positions I intend to pursue. I was also able to further build my network in this way by meeting outstanding leaders and service organizers in Ohio, such as the Ohio Art League or Columbus Museum of Art Curator. Not only was I able to personally grow in my role as a researcher and communicator, but I was able to demonstrate those talents to notable individuals who can serve as connections for me to reach out to in the future for possible collaborations, mentorship, advice, or potential internship positions. A similar aspect of the position in which I worked over the summer was the opportunity to aid in the marketing of the 2Rogues brand when at public events, such as at concerts, music festivals, gallery openings, and more. This meant that I was able to talk about my work with a large number of individuals, represent the organization through the distribution of merch, collect sound bytes—asking individuals questions for “Word on the Street” segments—and gain experience with that aspect of a business. As an individual who does not have social media accounts, gaining perspective through a hands-on marketing approach was a unique and unexpected opportunity for me, and I am grateful to have been granted the opportunity to have done so.

           A third way in which this Signature STEP Project shaped me was the simple task of taking conscious responsibility of my finances. Knowing that I needed to be able to procure receipts for spending hugely impacted the way I thought about financial decisions throughout the duration of my internship. Because the internship was unpaid, the STEP program helped alleviate a number of fiscal obstacles that I would have otherwise had to contend. However, I did not expect the physical tracking of purchases made to have been as difficult as it was. The act of asking for a receipt every time I got gas or bought groceries, collecting those physical items and maintaining them in a single safe space, and then tabulating all my spending through categorical analysis in the ledger made keeping track of my overall personal spending habits eye-opening. This responsibility to carefully evaluate each purchase and acquiring itemized proof has resulted in a much more actively engaged approach to how I allocate portions of my income. By taking more mindful ownership of my choices, I have not only matured as a financially well adult, but I have come to a deeper understanding of what it means to hold yourself culpable in order to make the best circumstances for yourself.

4. 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.

           As an English and Data Analytics double major, I have found myself most interested in the intersection of ideas, people, and culture with the observations of trends in data. That is, I find myself drawn to areas of social science research and real-life application of statistical models. One of my most prominent traits lies in my open-minded sense of curiosity, as well as a steadfast sense of integrity and truthfulness, and that has led to my interest in a number of publications, museums, and media sources. By working at a local NPR station, I have gained experience working at a radio station and with working with online media such as podcasts. I believe this has better equipped me for a future career with NPR, as well as with other organizations I am interested in such as National Geographic or museums like branches of the Smithsonian Institute. I have honed a number of the skills imperative for positions such as these, as well as for the research I intend to conduct while still completing my undergraduate and graduate education. Not only have I been made a better candidate for applying to institutions at which I intend to pursue a career, but I have also improved a number of personal qualities, such as concision within writing and financial mindfulness, that will prove fruitful throughout other aspects of my life as well.

You can check out some of my favorite projects during the internship below, such as my interview with the Ohio Art League here!

The internship I did over the summer was for 12 weeks at Fischer Homes. I did day-to-day training with some of the best salesmen in the company. I also finished the internship with a final project presentation in front of many of the companies department heads.

I definitely had a change of how I view myself. There was a certain shift of attitude from the beginning of the internship to the end. At the beginning I felt like a lost kid just trying to blend in with all the adults in the room. By the end though, I felt like I was confident and a professional who had gained respect from those around me. The biggest change as the view of myself.

To start, I would say the relationship I had with my trainers helped change my view. AT the beginning of the 12 weeks they were all very straight up and honest with me from the start. Their names were Travis, Dustin, Jacob, and Josh. I rotated weekly being trained by those guys. Some I trained with more than others. But all of them were very helpful and honest.

The first day Travis looked at me and said “why are you here?”. Ultimately he was setting me up for a very real and very deep question. Why was I there….why was I actually there. And the answer I gave him was the honest truth and he respected me from that point on. I told him I am looking for a career and this might be of interest to me, but honestly i have no idea what it is so I might hate it.

One of the bigger relationships that grew was the one with my manager. Cj, was a great mentor and role model for me throughout the 12 weeks. Cj was brutally honest with everything he said. He was positive and optimistic with me through everything. He helped me realize I was in a position where I had power and control and that i wasn’t just some intern.

This overall growth and change about the view of myself is helping me not only in the long run but also in the near term. I am more confident overall and realize I do have control over the things that happen in my life. In my professional goals as I go back to Fischer Homes full time this growth will help me in the building of my personal brand as a salesmen. Confidence in my academics helps me be more efficient and has lowered my procrastination levels.

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Inside of a house I helped sell

1. I workedthis summer with KPMG in their Chicago office as an Economic and Valuation Services intern. There, I did primarily business valuation work, learning about how to value a company and its assets.
2. Going into this summer, my main goal was to continue to narrow down my career interests and figure out what aspects of a career were important to me. After completing my project, I have a greater understanding of what these aspects are. The most important thing, I have learned, is the office culture. I had a great group of coworkers, and although the work was sometimes challenging and the hours could be long, having a group of people around me that I enjoyed being with made the job significantly better. I also learned that I want to be more client facing. The work I did this summer was all done without any client interaction, even though we were serving a client. Therefore, I am targeting my job search to areas that have a greater focus in this area such as consulting. Finally, I have learned that I want more variation in my work. While I enjoyed what I did, the work was often similar week after week, and I am looking for something a little more fast paced and varied.
3. Overall, there were a few key people and projects that really allowed me to narrow down my career search and allowed me to figure out what I want to do. With an eye towards the culture, two of the new associates, named Alex and Adwoa, were extremely influential on my time at KPMG. They would frequently go out of their way to help me with anything from figuring out how to file an expense report to explaining complicated technical aspects of the job. This often meant them having to stay late to finish their own work, and I really appreciated everything they were willing to sacrifice in order to help me succeed. My relationships with these two associates allowed me to grow professionally in a way I did not think possible in such a short time, and made me realize that I want a collaborative culture like this in all my future roles.

In addition to my experience with full time employees, I also genuinely enjoyed the other interns. There were 12 of us in our group, and getting to know them through being staffed on projects together and through social events like volleyball games or happy hours was extremely influential on my overall experience. My relationships with the other interns reinforced the idea that culture was the most important thing to me in a job because even though there were times where our work was stressful or time intensive, I left the office every day happy and with a positive attitude.

While I enjoyed the culture, there were a couple specific things about my work that I did not enjoy, which was helpful in moving me towards what I want to do. Specifically, full time employees in my practice only do a few tasks, and while they go very in depth with them, I realized that I wanted a bit more variety in the work that I was doing. Over the summer, the majority of what I was doing was related to benchmarking company performance against their competitors. While this was interesting, I felt like after a few weeks of doing this I was not learning anything new. I am now therefore looking for rotational programs and consulting work that would allow me to gain this variety that I want.

4. Now that I have learned the type of working culture I enjoy, I am able to narrow my search to companies that have this culture. I am also able to ask better questions when networking with companies to figure out if their culture is a good fit for me. I am also able to narrow my search to client facing organizations that allow me to work on a variety of projects. In the same way, I am able to ask more pointed questions about potential internships and rule out companies that I would not be a good fit for. Overall, this experience has helped me tailor my job search and moved me closer to finding the right career path for me.

I spent ten weeks interning in New York City at Luxottica. I was a marketing intern on the LensCrafters Corporate Marketing Team, directly leading multiple projects improve both the internal structures and processes in the company, but also conducting internal analysis and market research to provide more data and insights to drive marketing decisions.

This experience was very transformative for me and led me to some answers and more questions about what I want to do with my life. There were two aspects of this summer that I was excited about: the job and living in New York. I have always wanted to live in New York and it exceeded so many expectations. I loved living in the city. Being away from home in a giant city on my own was very freeing and allowed me to prioritize, in some ways, the things that I always wanted to do but never get the chance. The city had everything I wanted and I loved to fast paced, overcrowding nature of it all. The only complaint I had was time moved too fast there. ( hour work days would fly by and the next thing I knew I was up and doing it all over again. I loved New York and would absolutely live there again but I also still want to explore. I thought maybe I’d fall in love with just that city but I think more than anything I liked being somewhere different and I want to keep exploring different places and cities. 

Working at Luxottica was exciting, interesting, and stressful. I learned a lot about working in a large, international company and a lot of the challenges that come with that. Timelines take longer when more teams are involved, being on the same page is critical, and you could be the smartest person in the world but if you can’t make your point and make it quick, no one will listen. I definitely learned the importance of saying less, and only speaking when you know what your saying will be productive. Meetings can go so well if everyone is focused and prepared and it is incredibly easy to tell when someone isn’t prepared. I also realized that major and what you study in college doesn;t necessarily correlate with the skills you need in the real world. I had a marketing internship, and decided afterwards to drop my marketing major, not necessarily because I don’t want to do marketing or business, but I know see that a different perspective in a business room can be just as valuable, if not more, than having everyone come from the same background.

I learned about the challenges of working in such a large organization fairly early. One of my first tasks was to gather data and create an analysis process for some of LensCrafters individual email campaigns. My first thought was I’ll talk to the LensCrafters finance and analytics teams but, since Luxottica is a large company with many different large brands and retailers, teams like finance, analytics, creative, etc. work for all of the brands. This has a lot of benefits but I had to get used to the timelines that are a result. For example, getting a meeting with the teams took time since they are conducting analysis for multiple brands so we weren’t always the top priority. 

This structure forced me to become more efficient. Every minute in a meeting was precious time and if you didn’t have something to say you were wasting everyone’s time. In early meetings I had with my boss, I would just walk him through my work on my computer screen. I realized we walk talk about the same things in multiple meetings and we were never on the same page for next steps. I started preparing powerpoint decks before every meeting with an agenda and started every meeting by summarizing the previous meeting and our agreed upon deliverables. That gave me much more direction in my work and improved both project efficiency and communication overall. 

Towards the end of my time there I was given more responsibility and input into new campaigns and the ways they could change some aspects to improve overall performance. This is where I realized that having diverse thoughts in business comes in handy. If every marketer was a marketing manager and followed the same marketing path, their ideas should be similar. My ideas were different and informed by a different background. A lot of what I learned in my political science classes and jobs came in handy here. The marketing I was trying to improve was relationship building with customers over time. That’s what political candidates have to do to survive so having that background allowed me to bring in a new perspective and strategies which the team really liked. 

This summer allowed me to grow in a lot of ways I didn’t expect. I didn’t love the job like I  thought I did, and living in New York didn’t necessarily solidify it for me as a place to stay after college, but it did give me a greater sense of exploration. I want to go to another big city and work a totally different kind of job just to see how they compare. I’m more curious now about the world, careers, and where my skill set fits best and I’m excited to continue that journey with the confidence I gained this summer that I can do anything I put my mind to.

My STEP signature project was an internship I worked over the summer in Cleveland.  I completed a 12-week software engineering internship for a ~ 100-person cyber security company.  The company is called Keyfactor and they create software to help enterprise companies manage certificates for their enterprise environments.

My internship caused my understanding of myself to change drastically.  I went from not believing in myself as a programmer to having confidence.  I understand computer science and the profession of developing code as a completely different thing now.  I used to think programming was mainly about knowledge and since I didn’t have any built up knowledge from years of programming, I was a bad programmer.  I quickly found that not to be the case.  Although there were many full-time developers who had much more knowledge than I did, I found that not to be debilitating.  The true talent in programming is the ability to work with technology you are unfamiliar with and educate yourself on it at that moment in time.  The ability to read up on how a certain class or function works, and then implement it to solve the current problem at hand.  This has made me a much more confident programmer, because I know I can do that well, and the knowledge will come with time.

Watching my direct mentor, Jake, work was what first clued me in on the true talent in being a programmer.  Jake is extremely knowledgeable on just about everything involved with computer science, but I found over time that his knowledge mainly did not come into play.  Watching him develop was when I realized how easily he picks up new technology.  He would go from having never used a certain piece of technology to fully implementing it in our product, so I began to look for other examples of that.

Another time I realized the true talent of programming was when I sat in on a stand-up meeting, where we discussed the future implementations we were making in the product.  They decided they were implementing a feature in the product, and then they decided that no one knew the first thing about implementing that feature.  A developer then volunteered to research and figure out how the technology works and how to implement it.  This was no small task, he spent an entire week researching it, and at the end he knew how to implement it and taught his team how to.  I was extremely impressed that he was able to do something in a week that I knew would have taken me months.

The number one thing that made me realize the true talent involved with programming was my exit interview.  I started off the internship pretty rough as far as knowledge goes, I knew next to nothing about programming in an enterprise environment and it showed.  I had to ask for help on a lot of tasks and where to find certain elements of the code.  This got better as time went on and eventually I was programming pretty high-level features.  Before my exit interview, I was worried that I hadn’t gained enough knowledge over the internship. I was worried that I hadn’t progressed to a high enough level.  We got into the interview and my boss relayed to me that he was insanely happy with how well I had done.  He said watching me grow my ability to take on technology I had never used before was very impressive.  He didn’t care how far I got to and how familiar I was with the product, he cared how well I was able to come into new scenarios and figure out the best way to work in the scenario.  He effectively told me what I had been figuring out over the course of the semester, which cemented what I had been thinking for a while.

This change is extremely valuable for my life because it will allow me to concentrate my efforts more effectively when trying to become a better programmer.  I will no longer continue to try to touch as many technologies as I can and spread my knowledge out over lots of different languages and architectures, I will focus on building my problem-solving skills and resourcefulness.  This will make me more marketable in the future, because I can adapt to all kinds of possible scenarios instead of only being able to perform in scenarios I have already encountered.

1. 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 entailed participating in a summer internship with McKinsey and Company in Cleveland, Ohio. Over the course of ten weeks, I served as a Sophomore Summer Business Analyst, where I traveled weekly to both Charlotte, NC and Boise, ID to engage in client facing activities.

2. 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.

The transformation that I underwent this summer can be summed up in two words: ‘challenge everything’. In my experience as a consultant, it was imperative that I be able to bring a fresh lens to problem solving sessions and other analyses in order to provide value to the team and create client impact. My opportunity to be exposed to key decision makers in publicly traded companies forced me to realize that people are ultimately making the decisions behind closed doors. As simple as it may sound, I often struggled to believe that I could be one of these key decision makers: but moving forward, I have made it a goal of mine to carry on during the school year with the same mindset that I was able to adopt during my summer. Challenge everything.

3. 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.

My first, and arguably most significant experience took place in my first week of client facing interactions (which followed a week of training in Chicago, IL). I worked closely with my Engagement Manager, which mandated a fairly abnormal schedule, especially for someone (me) who was new to the consulting lifestyle. We started the week with a Monday morning flight to New Canaan, CT, flew to Charlotte, NC, on the subsequent Tuesday night, and flew home for the week on that Thursday evening. While I’ve mentioned that my first week was my most transformational, I’d like to break the transformational components into two main categories: personal, and professional development.

Starting with my personal development, I left this summer feeling like a completely new individual. Due to the independent nature of the work itself, I improve dramatically at non-work activities that have increased my efficiency as well as my effectiveness in day-to-day life. This fact is particularly true when speaking on organizational skills and structuring future plans. Nevertheless, I am extremely happy that I was able to develop a better understanding of my own capabilities, which directly feeds into my overall confidence levels in nearly all settings. Working on my self-confidence was one of my main goals prior to my start date, and I was sure to keep that in mind as I went about my day-to-day work. As the internship was honestly rigorous in most aspects, I couldn’t afford to doubt myself around such highly accomplished individuals. So to remedy this reality, I lived by the mantra that I initially set for myself several years ago: never doubt, just do.

Furthermore, this boost in confidence allowed me to perform my best throughout the 10 weeks that my project endured, and especially towards the end of the summer. Walking away from my summer experience, I’ve gained an incredible wealth of industry knowledge (specifically the grocery and mining industries, the respective industries of the two clients that I served this summer), as well as general business knowledge that will aid me in future work experiences with the firm. I cannot wait to see how this professional development affects my work in teams going forward, as I am confident that I can provide substantial value to group projects moving forward.

4. 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.

My summer experience has truly changed my life. Not only did I improve significantly, but I believe that I was able to develop skills and create relationships that are extremely uncommon for my age group and background. From both personal and professional lenses, I see myself as an individual who can achieve incredible things in the future: starting with McKinsey & Co after graduation. I have decided to sign a full-time offer letter that will allow me to put the job search behind me, and start prepping for graduate school examinations.

This past summer I had the opportunity to intern at Accenture, a global consulting and technology firm. Through the help of STEP I was able to fund my living expenses, as I was based out of Columbus and needed to obtain housing for the summer. My experience during the internship was incredible; I was able to really understand the career path of a consultant, and was able to narrow that down as the career I wish to pursue post undergrad. I was able to come to this realization when I saw the good parts and the challenging parts of consulting in an unadulterated form. I no longer had unrealistic expectations/glamorized views of consulting; I was able to view the career in an honest, raw way, and still decided to pursue it as a full time goal.

Through the financial assistance from STEP, I was able to live independently. I learned how to prepare meals ahead of time, managed an exercise/work schedule, and emulated the full time experience post graduation. This, combined with the solidification of my choice to do consulting, will allow me to enter the post grad world more smoothly.

A particular highlight of my summer internship was attending the conference that Accenture hosts for incoming Juniors. I got to meet students from all across the United States, and learn about their passions and interests. I met a lot of people similar to me, and the entire experience solidified that I wanted to return to consulting again this following next summer.

Incoming Juniors who attended All Access Accenture (AAA) in Boston

Over the summer, I worked as a Manufacturing Engineering Intern at the John Deere Part Distribution Center in Milan, Illinois. During this internship, I worked with the Quality Engineering team on a series of three different projects over the course of my internship. Each project I worked on considered a different aspect of John Deere’s part distribution business: efficiency in part shipping, employee productivity, and improvements in warehouse storing procedures.

This summer was a huge growing experience for myself both professionally and personally. Working forty-hours per week, doing the work of an actual engineer helped me understand what my life would be like as an engineer after graduation. However, even with this idea of what I could be doing as an engineer, I still had no real idea of what my path to get there would look like. Understanding this path was made possible by shadowing other Engineers within Deere.

I took the initiative to reach out to engineers at the different neighboring Deere facilities in order to both better understand the various role that a Mechanical Engineer can have within Deere and to also understand their path to their current position. I first shadowed an OFP Assembly Engineer who focused on how to implement changes in the current combine production process in order to prepare for design changes that would be happening in the near future. Outside of helping me understand the process to making changed in the current production line, I also learned a lot about his path to his current role at Deere. His path to his current position is quite unique in that he did not go to school for Engineering. He instead had an extensive understanding of the manufacturing process from previous employment and was able to use that experience to become a successful Assembly Engineer. I also shadowed a Design Engineer who focused on designing a new grain tank for future production combines. His path to his current role was a lot different than the Assembly Engineer that I shadowed due to the fact that he came to work for Deere right out of college and is currently in Deere’s rotational program. In this program he operates in three different Engineering roles. Having such a wide variety of experiences, he was able to offer be advice on how to navigate through different positions and get to the role that you want. These shadows helped me better understand how versatile the role of a Mechanical Engineer is within Deere and how my path to becoming an Engineer will probably be very different than others, but it’s my unique path that I will gain the necessary skills to secure my dream position.

This experience tied with living on my own for the first time helped me development as an adult. Being 8 hours away from home in a new city that is completely different from my hometown, I was forced to teach myself. Living with a roommate, learning how to cook, and being active in an employee resource group all while balancing forty hours of work per week really helped improve my time management skills. In order to get used to these changes, I first learned how to budget my finances and shop for groceries that would last two weeks at a time. Doing this gave me the ability to limit the amount of trips I made to the grocery store each week, saving me time and gas. Being that my mother had provided me with recipes for different meals, I used these recipes to meal prep for the entire week so that I could save time in the afternoons to go to the gym and explore the surrounding area with other interns. I also cooked alongside some of my fellow interns, exchanging recipes and making lasting relationships that will extend beyond the summer.

This summer I also had the ability to travel to different Midwest cities and better understand what life is like in other parts of the country. This summer I traveled to Milwaukee, WI and Chicago, IL. In my trip to Milwaukee, I was able to explore the city and get a better idea of what my life would be like if I lived there. In my trip to Chicago, I toured the city with some of my fellow interns where we ate at some of the best Chicago restaurants and saw some of the sights.

Overall, this summer internship was a very meaningful experience that gave me the ability to focus on developing myself both as an adult and as a professional. It was through this that I was able to gain insight on what my future holds as an engineer while also helping me figure out what it is that I want to do in life. I also expanded my network, adding professionals who will help mentor me so that I can be the best engineer that I can possibly be. My internship this summer is an experience that I will continue to carry with me after graduation as it has helped develop me in so many different ways.

My STEP Signature Project was an internship at a private equity firm in Cincinnati, Ohio called Orchard Holdings. This experience was nothing short of fantastic, as I was able to experience all facets of the buy-side investing space. This included everything from financial modeling to sitting in on board meetings with Orchard’s portfolio companies and participating in phone calls with investment bankers. My understanding of myself changed immensely over the past few months. It was my first time spending a 40-hour work week in an office and I was able to learn a lot about myself, most importantly being that I respond well to specific direction but also can improve in the areas of proactiveness and attention to detail. In terms of my assumptions about my view of the world, I always perceived the financial space as somewhere only numbers and deadlines mattered. After three months at Orchard Holdings I realized that relationships, even in an industry where hard dollars are very relevant, will always take precedent.

I was tasked with many things during my internship and a lot of the projects were relatively vague in nature. These projects were mostly research-based and when I was given direction, I was able to finish the task without a problem. At times, though, I could have been seeking out extra work or going above and beyond the call of duty. This is where I realized I could have been more proactive with certain projects. Proactiveness is where innovation occurs, and innovation is what keeps the world moving forward.

I was also tasked with financial modeling during the internship. This included mostly projecting out the growth and returns profile of companies. While I was able to complete the modeling tasks efficiently and effectively, I also missed little details from time to time within the models, whether that be a misplaced title or slightly erroneous data inputs. One thing my employers emphasized during the internship was that perfection is of the highest importance in the private equity space. This is not only a rule I am going to apply to the professional world but for life in general going forward.

Lastly, I realized that relationships are the most important facet of any profession. I saw this in several areas throughout the summer. This was evident in the way that everyone interacted with each other on a day-to-day basis. It was also evident throughout the ups and downs of everybody’s lives. One instance was where an individual in the office had a death in the family, and everybody without hesitation attended the celebration of life ceremony. My biggest takeaway is that although the work you do is incredibly important, when you boil it down ultimately creating and fostering relationships is what matters the most.

This transformation is valuable for my life because all the lessons I learned are applicable in all areas of life. While I enjoyed my summer experience at Orchard Holdings and plan on continuing my path towards finance, I obviously do not know where I will be in 10, 20 or 50 years. What I do know is that figuring out the most important things in my professional life such as work ethic and relationships is going to pay dividends throughout my entire career.

This summer, I had the privilege of using my STEP Fellowship for my internship with Morgan Stanley in Cincinnati, OH. I was working in the Wealth Management division of Morgan Stanley and was able to gain exposure and knowledge of the industry I am wanting to pursue. I interacted with clients, assisted advisors in investment decisions, as well as worked on projects to enhance my experience in a corporate setting as well as my knowledge of the financial services industry. I was so lucky to be around so many talented and experiences financial advisors helping families all over the country with assets under management (AUM) of over $4 billion.

I am so grateful for having been given the opportunity to use my STEP Fellowship this past summer with Morgan Stanley. I truly did feel like my summer was transformational in that I grew as a person in whole while learning so much about what I am interested in and helped me even further narrow in on my career search. I know hold myself to a higher standard after being in a corporate office setting at Morgan Stanley. My views of the world have definitely shifted as well. First off, my views about corporate setting jobs have transformed. After being in an office for over 40 hours each week, I came to realize how much effort and time goes into each one of the advisor’s client’s needs. In addition, after interacting with so many unique clients from different backgrounds, I have come to learn that everyone is always going through something and needs help at some point in their life. The financial advisors that I was working directly with were not only the resource to handle their client’s money and future, but also a friend.

I had some very impactful experiences I had over the summer with Morgan Stanley. I was able to experience firsthand the interaction between advisors and their clients. I did not realize how much time they spent with their clients. I was so grateful to have been given the opportunity to sit in on client meetings with advisor’s personal wealth clients and their institutional clients as well. The advisors in my group wouldn’t even start talking to their client about anything related to their investments until at least 20 minutes had passed. Instead, the conversation was full of catching up about their recent travel, family, and other things that have been going on.

This brings me to my next point about the idea of trust. Like I mentioned earlier, the relationship between client and advisor has to be strong and constant for business to be good and for both parties to be happy. When each advisor sits down with a new client for the first time, the main thing the advisor is trying to gain from the client is trust. Trust is key in this relationship. If someone were going to be handling my money and planning for my retirement, I want to trust this person. I was able to realize that these advisors are obviously very good at handling investments and determining the correct asset allocation, but they are even better and relating to their clients and talking with them, just like friends talk with each other.

One other aspect of working with Morgan Stanley this past summer that led to these transformations was that of the projects I was working on. I was assigned projects regularly that in turn would help the advisors have better opportunities and experiences with their current clients. For example, I would serve as a liaison between the advisor and some of the wholesalers of mutual funds and investment funds. I would gather the information the advisor wanted from each particular wholesaler and relay the information to the advisor, so he has it ready for client meetings. In addition, I would assist in decisions regarding different types of investment vehicles and asset allocation.

This huge opportunity this past summer thanks to STEP is going to be so valuable to my life. I am so lucky to have been given the opportunity to work for Morgan Stanley and to have been chosen to receive a STEP fellowship. I feel more prepared for my career search and more prepared to take on the workforce after graduation. In addition I feel more comfortable talking with business professionals and recruiters because of my office setting this past summer. Going in to the summer, I felt that I had “ok” professional skills and knowledge, but I feel much better and more confident in myself because of this amazing experience.