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1)
My STEP signature project consisted of an internship with The Ohio State Planning, Architecture, and Real Estate (PARE) office as one of their lease administration assistants. The role consisted primarily of abstracting and analyzing business details relating to originating, adjusting, and time significant leases, while also pointing out and resolving differences between details outlined in legal documents for various properties, what is inputted into the company property management portal for these properties, and the behavior of those who hold responsibility for the properties in any manner. In addition, I worked to aid in the progression of various time significant projects within the office which were not lease specific. The size of these projects varied significantly with some taking right about an hour to complete while others spanned over multiple months. Moving forward I will continue employment with the PARE office doing the same role, however, I will also take part in meetings relating to the office’s plan to push forward with their proposed Framework 3.0 plan for the University’s development primarily in and around the west campus corridor. Since the ideal plan has already been formed my work on the framework front will consist primarily of attending the occasional meetings and giving input towards adjusting what is ideal to what is practical, mainly in the financial sense.
2)
Reflecting on my internship with The Ohio State University PARE office I feel that the understanding of myself has not change significantly. Before the internship I knew within myself where my intelligence and adaptability levels lied, and because of this I knew I was able to succeed within the field of analyzing real estate; therefore, I knew I was more than capable of succeeding in a portfolio administrative role which my internship was centered around. My time with the PARE office affirmed this feeling that I can succeed within such a setting, whether via a remote workspace or in office. Moving past my own self-reflection though I will note that a lot of subconscious assumptions I held about the world, especially in the corporate/institutional space, were developed and/or adjusted during my time with the PARE office. The most significant assumption which shifted in my life was the realization that in corporate/institutional settings the summer months are the busiest. Due to my life experience, where summer signified a break, I assumed that while people with full time jobs still worked, their day-to-day operations would be comparatively less strenuous compared to the rest of the year. My introduction to the expiration and commencement of the fiscal year (June 30th and July 1strespectively) then was a large awakening, and one that I will value moving into the career phase of my life as it unforgivingly corrected this assumption. Never again will I be caught off guard by an overwhelming amount of work occurring during the latter half of June and early half of July. Additionally, I assumed that my superiors in an office setting would be less forgiving, and maybe it was because the role I occupied was fairly inconsequential, but whenever I would make a mistake my supervisors were quite understanding and helpful in setting me back on the right path rather than being destructively critical.
My views of the world change fairly significantly during my internship with the PARE office, especially in the sense that my mind shifted from seeing a job as an effort-based affair to a results-based affair. I say this because, prior to this internship, all of the jobs I worked strictly required effort and the end result seemed quite meaningless. For example, when I worked for an Italian restaurant there would be people who produced fantastic food and those who produce fairly average to below average dishes, however, their praise and their pay did not vary based on the food’s quality, rather the speed at which they could fulfill orders. Likewise, when I did landscaping, the hardest part of the job was waking up and getting out to a job site. After that the work one put in did not really effect how a supervisor treated them or reflect upon them because the work was logically very easy, and thus any effort put forth made a job successful. The internship varied in that respect because the level of effort fluctuated significantly, sometimes even day-to-day, much more than it did at those other jobs. Somedays I would be on standby to help find information relating to various pending projects which sometimes meant I was putting in little no effort at all while still receiving high praise from my supervisors. Other days there were numerous projects that my supervisors would want completed by the end of the day (in some cases) which would require a substantial amount of effort and at the end of it I would be constructively criticized even though, comparatively, I was putting in much more effort than usual. This taught me that as an employee in a “higher level field”, fundamentally you are asked to operate at the level being asked of you by your superiors, and as a superior you are being asked to keep your subordinates working at a consistent pace in order to get the most out of their salaries. I want to be a boss one day and this was a good lesson to learn as when I am a boss I will try my hardest to keep my subordinates at a rock steady work pace so that money is not wasted.
3)
The first event which comes to mind concerning the increase in workflow which occurred during the beginning and end of a fiscal year was this project where the interns within the office had to nail down how much we should be charging those the PARE office does business with in management fees. This comes to mind because the project was something that our superiors wanted completed by the end of the fiscal year (June 30th) and unfortunately did not come to completion until late July. There were numerous reasons for this, but the bottom line was that supervisors across multiple offices including PARE did not kickoff work on this project until it was too late. Another aspect which didn’t help were the adjustments and mistakes that were in part forced by the office, primarily the interns, feeling rushed to complete the project. Concerning the adjustments specifically, I learned that if a dialogue was had with the entirety of the office together before work on the project started, we may have been able to nail down which adjustments were likely to be had, thus saving a lot of time as this conversation was not had until a while into the project.
Another issue which kept the progress of that large project from meeting deadline was the introduction of various other projects which also needed completion. Ordinarily, these assignments would be given to another team as ours was occupied with the large fee assessment project, however, because of the fiscal year deadline, all parties were occupied, thus there were more projects than there were employees. Being that we were interns the overflow fell onto us. The most significant workflow interrupting project to be randomly introduced was a report on how much property was lost and acquired since COVID hit. The university got a new planning director while the fiscal year was coming to a close and he was quite passionate about making sure that the university’s growth bounced back and exceeded goals set before COVID. Part of this effort was the aforementioned report which would typically be a valid request, however, given the workload placed upon us beforehand the new project was less than convenient. The project created quite the overwhelming environment unintentionally which could have been avoided given there was more communication between our supervisors and there new director. As a result I would say that communication, specifically a lack thereof, seemed to be the root cause of a lot of the delays that the office faced over the summer, which helped me realize that while expertise is an important factor within a “higher level field”, communication is equally if not more pertinent.
In addition to communication, I learned just how important establishing a routine to the start of a workday is. When I started, my boss told me this would be one of the things I would have to master and he was completely correct. Starting off the workday in a consistent manner simply made each day easier for me as all repetitive and monotonous tasks were fulfilled within the first one or two hours of my day which freed up the rest of my shift to finish the more significant tasks at hand. By finishing the daily tasks, especially my communicative tasks, to start the day made mine as well as those I communicated with’s days easier as my end of communication was done before 11AM which gave those people essentially the entire day to get the information I would need back to me for whichever project was relevant.
4)
The changes and transformations I experienced throughout my internship with The Ohio State PARE office were very significant and valuable to my life moving forward as they provided me with an outlook which has allowed me to adapt to what a day-to-day work schedule within a corporate/institutional setting looks and feels like. I now have a good idea about how an office employee’s day should start (as mentioned previously) and I have developed great time management skills for the office. These skills are going to be paramount to my success within corporate and/or institutional spaces moving forward. In additional to these skills I have developed an expertise in MS office, specifically excel sheets, managing numerous corresponding streams of email communication, and property management administration. These skills are very base level for office operations within a real estate related space so while they alone will not make me an exceptionally coveted employee, they do provide a necessary base of skills which I can develop in order to become a coveted employee, and eventually an effective leader.
My time with the PARE office has slightly shifted my academic and professional goals. Heading into the internship I felt that while the role was more real estate focused, that I eventually would like to end up in an urban planning role which favored someone also possessing real estate related skills. Now, after the internship I much more open minded towards a real estate centered role which also lends itself to someone possessing urban planning skills. This shift also will affect my academic pathway as I will likely take some more real estate related coursework if such coursework fits into my schedule.