My first summer internship experience and what I learned

Prelude:

When the idea to write this piece was first proposed to me by my fellow coworker and now good friend Catherine Anderson, I was quite excited and moved at the prospect. My mind immediately began to race as I thought of everything I could share from what I have learned in the past two summers I have spent interning at Eagle Investment Systems. Coupling that with the immense personal growth I have fostered this past year, I felt this piece would be a strong testament to all I have learned and accomplished. So in short, I have written this article to not only discuss the skills and intangibles I have attained in working my first corporate world job, but also to share some personal advice and valuable life lessons I have learned along the way. 

Eagle Investment Systems Internship:

Summer 2015: Upon arriving to Eagle’s Wellesley office on the first day of my internship I was filled with mixed emotions, most notable of anxiety and excitement. I recall feeling both surprised and honored to have been presented with my very own cubicle. Once I had settled into what would be my workspace for the next three months, I was reminded of the feeling I had when moving into my freshman year dorm room just months earlier. It was an intense feeling of both responsibility and accomplishment, of feeling proud of the personal and professional strides you are making.

My first summer working at Eagle was spent in the ‘Knowledge Management department’, under the supervision of Marianne Simpson. Marianne is a tenured Eagle employee and experienced businesswoman, whom I feel fortunate enough to have learned and grown from. I can recall a memory of eating lunch with Marianne in her office on the first day of my internship and being asked what I wanted to gain the most from my summer experience. Nervously, I expressed that first and foremost I wanted to gain more experience with Excel, a Microsoft program that my father had stressed several times to me was critical in the business world. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Marianne is extremely proficient in Excel, and proved to be a huge asset to me becoming an expert in the program. Throughout the duration of the summer, I logged heavy hours within Excel and became very familiar with the Microsoft program and its many functions. I also expressed to Marianne that I wished to gain quality “corporate world experience” in my summer spent at Eagle. Again, Marianne catered to this inquiry by including me in several team meetings, allowed me to set up meetings of my own with other employees, and even let me present my current projects in the monthly “Knowledge Management” and “Training team” meetings. The overall experience I got from being able to come into a corporate environment every day and interact with other tenured businessmen and women was immeasurable and something I could not learn nor experience in a college classroom. Among several other tasks, my first summer at Eagle resulted in me completely reorganizing survey results and monthly revenue reports from external company training sessions; creating a comprehensive Knowledge Management team brochure; researching and recommending a polling app to be used in company meetings (which has since been implemented and is currently in use); and developing and implementing a process to collect analytics on corporate training events. Furthermore, over the duration of the summer, a team made up of fellow interns and myself were tasked with producing a “Summer Internship Presentation” to be presented at the conclusion of the internship to our managers and other company executives. We created a PowerPoint presentation as well as a video, which outline what we had gained from our summer spent working at Eagle. Our presentation made such a strong impression on President and CEO John Lehner that we were asked to present it at the company wide, bi-weekly, Monday meeting. My fellow interns graciously elected me to solely present our work at the meeting and although the presentation was daunting at first, it ended up going extremely well and was another intangible experience for me. Although challenging at times, my first summer spent at Eagle Investment Systems, as well as my first ‘corporate world job’, was an amazing personal growth and learning experience.

Virtual work: About a month after finishing at Eagle in summer of 2015, Catherine Anderson, the coworker and Eagle HR rep that inspired me to write this article, contacted me. Cat said she was reaching out to see if I would be interested in working virtually for the company while at school. I had originally proposed this idea to Marianne during the past summer, and was thrilled that the idea was finally coming to fruition. Within a couple of weeks, my company laptop was sent to me at school and I was working for Marianne again, this time at a more modest 8 to 10 hours a week. Again, the freedom and flexibility I was given was remarkable, having the ability to work practically whenever I could fit it into my schedule and being assigned projects that were by no means time sensitive. I would meet with Marianne over the phone about once a week during which time we would discuss my status on current projects and anything else she had in mind regarding future assignments. Whenever I had a difficult week of school ahead of me I would inform Marianne, and whomever else I was working with at the time, that my time spent dedicated to Eagle would be limited. Everyone was always more than understanding of this, recognizing that schoolwork came first. Balancing school, working for Eagle, and adjusting to everything that comes in transferring to a new school (I had transferred from Bryant University to UMASS Amherst) was not always the easiest thing in the world and at times left me quite stressed. However, the experience helped remind me that life isn’t always easy and at times requires you to put in the extra effort and lose some hours of sleep. Despite the fact that many of my projects were not time sensitive and I was not being held to any strict deadlines, I still bore a responsibility to my managers and Eagle to get my 8 to 10 hours a week in around my other commitments. Sometimes this would require that I stay up until 1 to 2 AM in order to get the necessary hours in. My time spent working virtually for Eagle ended at the end of April but was nonetheless a great learning experience and left me excited to come back for my second summer in the office at the beginning of June.

Summer 2016: Upon returning to the Eagle office at the beginning of the 2016 summer, I immediately felt a lot less anxious and more comfortable then I had a year prior. I had returned to my old cubicle and although I was now working under Senior Project Manager Electra Govoni in the Project Management department, I was continuing to do some work for Marianne Simpson and the Knowledge Management Department. I found that I was far more independent and social around the office already knowing several employees and being introduced to new faces every day. I had far less meetings with Electra then I had with Marianne the prior year and felt more trusted by those I was working with as they knew I could be relied on to produce quality results. Electra also provided me with the fortunate opportunity to sit in on several high-level management meetings such as the PSMO Governance Meeting, the R&D Monthly Board book meeting, and even the Weekly Senior Management Meeting. These meetings not only exposed me to some of the projects high-end managers were involved in, but also allowed me to witness how these meetings differed in relation to traditional employee team meetings, particularly in terms of the meeting’s structure and member interaction. Additionally, throughout the summer I spent a good amount of time assisting project manager Greg Koelsch and his team in a client-facing network migration project. First and foremost this experience presented me with the opportunity to witness first-hand the stresses and responsibilities which a Project Manager bares on a daily basis. With Greg’s guidance, I edited client project plans in Microsoft Project, sat in on the project’s weekly conference calls, and also sent notification emails to high-level clients. During my second summer tenure at Eagle I also: completely revamped the company’s Diversity Council website; helped the Documentation team in combining two Corporate Action training manuals; assisted the KM team in migrating all internal and external videos from the company’s old video platform to its new video platform which they had begun to implement; and also created a training sessions workflow document for Eagle’s Training team. I was now contributing to four major Eagle departments/teams, Project Management, Documentation, Knowledge Management, and Training, while continuing to build upon my corporate world knowledge and skillset. With a new summer at Eagle came a fresh batch of summer interns and in turn, the second year of the Eagle Summer Internship Project. With this year’s project I actually got the chance to apply some of the skills I had learned over the summer in working with Greg Koelsch as I was elected as the Project Manager. In order to increase the team’s efficiency, I quickly developed three sub-teams, the presentation team, graphic design team, and video editing team, each of which was lead by a different summer intern. This forced other interns to step into leadership roles and also ensured that everyone was contributing. Once again the final project was a huge success and made an even bigger impression then the previous summers.

Transition:

I cannot thank Eagle and the numerous employees I worked with during the past two summers enough for everything they have taught and done for me. I am extremely grateful to have been given this opportunity and hope my hard work at the company has emulated that. Although there are so many employees whom I have learned from at Eagle, I would be remiss in not personally thanking Catherine Anderson, Marianne Simpson, and Electra Govoni for all their time and efforts spent teaching me so many valuable life lessons and skills. In the next section of this article, I would like to share with my readers some of the things I have learned from working at Eagle and also within the past year of my life. Hopefully I have kept you entertained up until this point and that you have the motivation to want to read on!

Get hungry and never be satisfied

Working at Eagle allowed me to realize many things about my career, my future, and my life in general. If there is one overarching principle that Eagle made me realize however, it is that I am extremely, metaphorically, hungry. To better understand what I mean by this, I would like to allude to an experience I had a few years ago during my senior year football season. Prior to a big game during my final season of football, one of my coaches left a spoon in my locker with athletic tape on it that read “ALWAYS Stay Hungry.” Receiving that spoon fired me up for that day’s game and for the rest of the season whenever I saw it I would get psyched up to go out and play. In the two plus years since the end of that season however, the meaning and inspiration instilled upon me by that spoon had gone away; until I arrived at Eagle. Working at Eagle has revitalized that fire in me and now all that hunger and energy is aimed towards my career and future. Eagle reminded me that there is ALWAYS work to be done and that the grind never stops. Once you complete one project, another one is seeking your attentiveness and resources. Working at Eagle has made me much more passionate about life and the daily grind of work. I have begun to take more pride in my work, realizing that everything I put forth from here on out is a reflection of who I am as a person. If you put in a halfhearted effort, you will in turn get a half-hearted result and thus come off to others as unreliable and inconsistent. If instead you choose to put passion and pride into your work however, you will in turn get a passionate result and thus prove to others that you are a passionate and driven person whom can be trusted to produce quality results. Never be satisfied with anything less than your best work in whatever it is you do in life. Being able to go to bed at night knowing that you put forth everything you could on that given day is a rewarding experience like no other. Our worse days in life our often those in which we aren’t working towards or for something we individually feel passionate about. Motivate yourself to become hungry and eager to succeed in life. Additionally, maintain that hunger and drive throughout the duration of your life and if something happens that angers or distresses you, take that negative experience and let it fuel you to do something positive and impactful. Let your haters and doubters stimulate you on your quest of a great career and life.

Open your mind

One of the biggest things I immediately observed in arriving on the campus of UMASS Amherst this past fall was the range of different personalities and people present at the University. I quickly become aware of the fact that I was no longer in my sheltered hometown or on the secluded campus of Bryant University in Smithfield, RI. Being around people who shared different backgrounds and worldviews from myself allowed me to broaden the scope of ideas I was being exposed to. I began to hang out with an eclectic group of people and explore different insights and views on life than I ever had before. It was a very interesting and new experience for me, and I feel my efforts to expand my horizons greatly improved my life satisfaction. Whatever stage you are at in your life you should always be open to trying new things, meeting new people, and entertaining new ideas. If someone at your company is looking for someone to head a project, step up. Offer to take a role in a project, even if it is an area which you are not quite familiar with. Be eager to learn and contribute to the team in whatever capacity you can. Do not prejudge someone because of how they look or something you heard them say the first time you met them. Understand that everyone you meet has a unique backstory a lot different than yours. Once you begin to open your mind to new people, ideas, projects, etc. in life you will find that there are some amazing and profound things and people out there, which you never may have been interested in before.

Take the stairs and come in early

Two things you can do every day to make a good impression on others and to start your day off on a positive note - are to come in early and take the stairs. If given the option, taking the stairs up to your floor, so long as you work on a reasonable floor number, is always a more beneficial option than riding the elevator. Not only is it good for you physically, but it’s also a good way to get the blood flowing and let your body know that it’s time to go to work. Whether it is coming in to work in the morning or coming back from lunch break, taking the stairs up to work is always a better option then taking the elevator and makes the stair walk down at the end of the day a lot sweeter. Additionally, waking up a half hour earlier and in turn getting into work a half hour earlier can make a huge difference in your day and long run success. Your manager will likely notice, especially if you are already at your desk as they are walking in, and for me personally, there is something satisfactory about being one of the first employees in your department to get into work. By getting in earlier you also have the privilege of leaving a bit earlier in the afternoon if you so choose to. These are just two small, everyday things that I feel are good habits to get into as one begins to break into the “real world.”

Find your Passion(s)

The proverb “Find something you love to do and you’ll never work a day in your life” is something I believe should be at the forefront of anyone’s mind when pursuing a career-path. It is important to discover what you like and dislike in life and do everything you can to work towards the things you enjoy. What I would like to stress in this section however, is that it is also crucial to discover the things in life which you enjoy to do and are passionate about outside of work. Finding hobbies and passions to keep you occupied outside of the office helps to pass the workweek by and is crucial to one’s overall life happiness. Personally, I am involved in a weekday softball league throughout the summer and do my best to get out golfing with friends as often as possible during the week. During my free time, I enjoy being around friends and loved ones, water skiing up at my New Hampshire house, and partaking in mind-engaging conversations or reading interesting books. When I can, I enjoy listening to interesting podcasts such as: The Monday Morning Podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, Serial, and Revisionist History with Malcom Gladwell. There are also several Employee Resource Groups and other organizations around Eagle which I have gotten partially involved in during my time here and would certainly consider joining if I were a full time employee. Finding a profession that is driven by your passions is a very important component to one’s overall happiness, however, making sure you find interests and enjoyment outside of one’s work life, is crucial to maintaining a contented balance.

Be curious about life

Curiosity is an important quality to foster not only in the business world but also in other aspects of daily life. Asking questions about the company you’re working at, why certain things are done a certain way, or what effect the outcome of a certain project will have, shows others that you are interested and engaged in what you are doing as opposed to merely going through the motions. It additionally shows your manager and other coworkers that you are excited to learn and grow within the company. On a personal note, I know the questions I asked during my first year at Eagle tremendously helped me gain a better understanding of the company and allowed me to see how the projects I was working on were effecting and contributing to the organization. I cannot think of a time when I regretted asking my manager or colleague a question, and there were certainly times I wish I had asked even MORE questions. There were instances during my first summer tenure at Eagle where I did not speak up about clarifications regarding certain assignments I was unclear on and consequentially spent hours either doing something wrong, or completing a task that otherwise would have taken half an hour. Additionally, I cannot think of one person I have worked with at Eagle who was not willing to answer my questions and clear things up for me. Asking appropriate, informed questions in the work space is a good habit to get into as it can only really help you. Having said that, asking educated questions and being curious outside of work is never a bad thing either. The basis of most new friendships and relationships in life, especially in college, generally stem from the asking of general questions. Asking someone where they are from or what their major is can lead to all sorts of unknown connections and shared interests which may develop into a deeper more profound understanding of another person. Be curious in life and ask as many appropriate questions as you can for you may be surprised at some of the answers you get.

“Confidence is a stain they can’t wipe off”

The word ‘confidence’ often receives a negative connotation as it gets used interchangeably with ‘cockiness.’ Cockiness is generally not a great quality to possess, where confidence almost always is. In relation to my Eagle experience, I was certainly a lot more confident coming back into the office for my second summer experience then I was in my first. Additionally, I was much more independent in my work and self-confident in myself during my second summer. I would not be anxiously checking over emails multiple times before sending them, putting off scheduling meetings with people that I did not know, or scheduling multiple meetings a week with my manager to check in and see if I was doing things correctly. There is no doubt that my increased self-assurance was due in large part to already having three months’ experience in the office and another five months working virtually for the company. However, I would be remiss in not attributing my rise in self-esteem to the past year I had spent at UMASS Amherst. When I initially transferred to UMASS and began trying to fit in and find my niche socially, I spent an immense amount of time on my own. Within that experience, I came to find my independence and began to truly love myself a lot more than I ever had before. I started to doubt my decisions less, had much less regret about decisions I hadn’t or had made in the past, and overall just trusted myself and my gut a lot more. In conclusion, I have found that one of the most successful tactics to increasing your self-esteem and self-confidence in life is to spend some time working on yourself. Discover who you truly and authentically are in life and more importantly, be comfortable with who you are. Being able to spend time alone and not having to be surrounded by others all the time in order to be happy is a crucial part of growing up. Always remember that confidence is a great character trait to possess in life so long as it does not turn into cockiness.

Let go of the results and start enjoying the grind

An immense self-transformation I feel I have made in this past year has been in my overall attitude and approach to everyday life. Most notable, I have begun to stop looking so much at the big picture of things and rather started focusing on being the best version of myself that I can be day in and day out. There would be times last summer when I really would not want to get out of bed to go into work. My mindset throughout the whole day would then be set on getting to 5 o’clock and getting out of the office. I enjoyed my three-month stint at Eagle however, I was also excited for the summer to end and to get back to school. Conversely, this summer I find that I am far more excited and eager to get into work and get my day started. I have shifted my overall mindset and as opposed to viewing my internship at Eagle as sort of a burden, I have begun to look at it this summer as a great privilege and opportunity that I get to come in to work here every day. Additionally, as I alluded to earlier in this passage, I have begun to focus more on the grind and process of everyday work and enjoying that process as opposed to working towards a common goal or end game. To better comprehend what I mean by this I have attached a video at the end of this document by Kyle Cease, a comedian and motivational speaker, entitled “Why people’s opinions of you aren’t real.” The video changed my life and I would highly recommend watching it in its entirety as it is quite intriguing however, there is a portion towards the end of the video when Cease tells his audience to “Let go of the results, have a little intention, let go of the results, and watch how quickly they show up.” I like to think that I have started to adopt this sort of an approach to life within the past year and as a result I have witnessed an increase in my overall daily happiness and productivity. As I expressed earlier, I find myself enjoying the grind and process of everyday much more then I used to. Let go of the results and your perception of what others think of you and be a little selfish as you start to chase your passions and do what makes you happy. In turn, the results you are seeking will begin to show up quicker than you could have ever expected.

Always be sexy

At the 2013 Teen Choice Awards after receiving the ‘Ultimate Choice Award,’ Ashton Kutcher gave what is in my opinion one of the most moving speeches of all time. I recently rediscovered this powerful speech and will be alluding to it in the final two sections of this article. Kutcher shares with his audience some of his “insider tips to keeping one’s career going” and although I agree with all three points he makes, I want to touch upon two of them in particular. One of the three pieces of advice he gives is “to always be sexy in life.” Despite what many of us may think he is referring to, Kutcher reveals that in his opinion “the sexiest thing in the entire world is being really smart. And being thoughtful. And being generous.” Although on paper his theory on ‘sexiness’ sounds like a matter of opinion, I feel it holds a lot of truth. Think of the best experiences, friendships, relationships, etc. that you have had with others in your life. For me, my fondest, most lasting memories are of times when my friends and I were all laughing and getting a long; or I was having an intelligent, deep, borderline crazy conversation with someone; or when I did something that truly impacted others in a positive manner. And when you really think about the best interactions or memories you have with yourself and/or others the core of those interactions and memories stem from one, if not more, of Kutcher’s three components: intelligence, thoughtfulness, and generosity. Although at times it may be tough to portray all three of these attributes, it is important to always keep them in mind and strive every day to be “the sexiest person” you can be. Additionally, after spending close to a full year working at Eagle, I think it is safe for me to say that several Eagle employees possess these qualities. Not only are several of the business professionals I have been fortunate enough to interact with at Eagle extremely intelligent, but many of them have also shown me that they possess the other two components of Kutcher’s formula. Nearly everyone I have been fortunate enough to have worked with during my tenure at Eagle has been incredibly generous, thoughtful, and overall willing to help me learn and grow as a young businessman. I absolutely love Kutcher’s philosophy on “being sexy” and feel that whether they know it or not, many Eagle employees possess the components to his master formula.

Create your own life

Kutcher’s last, and in my opinion most powerful, tip of advice relates to living one’s life. He alludes to the late Steve Jobs, and one of Jobs’ famous quotes in which he said, “When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way that it is. And that your life is to live your life inside the world and try not to get in too much trouble, and maybe get an education, and get a job, and make some money, and have a family. But life can be a lot broader then that when you realize one simple thing. And that is that everything around us that we call life was made up by people that are no smarter then you. And you can build your own things, you can build your own life that other people can live in. So build a life, don’t live one, build one.” Again, on paper it may sound a bit corny and clique but coming from someone who has re-watched Kutcher’s speech close to a hundred times this is easily one of the most motivational things I have ever heard or watched (I have attached the full speech below). Now someone may initially hear this and think ‘what’s wrong with striving to obtain all of those things in life?’ and that is a completely valid argument. There is absolutely nothing wrong with pursuing the life Kutcher describes above. What he is arguing however, is that YOUR life can be whatever YOU want it to be. I think I enjoy this part of Kutcher’s speech so much because it really inspired me to live this truth at a time in my life when I felt I was at a crossroads. This past year I admittedly went through the very real “Sophomore slump” and found myself at a fork in the road of my life and career. I was undecided on my major and wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to do with my life going forward. It is a daunting time in one’s life, your teenage years dwindling down and adulthood starting to creep up. Luckily, I was able to collect my thoughts and chose the path of double majoring in Finance and Sport Management with a minor in Psychology - and for one of the first times in my life I have somewhat of an idea as to what it is that I want to do going forward. As Millennials, we are at a crucial point in our lives. In a few years, we will be graduating from college with our respective degrees and entering the workforce. What we do with our lives in the years to come is completely up to us. We have the fortunate opportunity to indeed “build our own lives” as opposed to living one. Although there are certainly many negatives to it, one of the greatest things I find about our fast-paced, technology driven culture is that our world is open to so many more opportunities then previous generations before us. We can do practically anything we want with our lives and the college degrees that we earn and must take advantage of all the opportunities we are presented with. It is our turn to change the world and we owe it to our parents and those that came before us to do just that. So in summation, live everyday with the wisdom of Steve Jobs, and attempt to emulate the truth, “Build your own life, don’t live one.”

Final Thoughts

If you have managed to read all the way to this point, I would first like to praise and thank you for doing so. I realize this article was quite long and recognize that not everything would make it to the end. Please feel free to leave comments as your feedback helps see things in my writing that I cannot. I would like to give a special thank you to Cat Anderson for inspiring me to write this piece and to Audrey Foxx for helping me make this piece a lot more attractive to read. To all the Millennials out there eager to join the workforce and hungry to get their careers started like myself, I remind you that it is indeed our time. The world is ours to change and we can do so many amazing things once we recognize all our potential and come together.  “Don’t forget where you came from but never lose sight of where you are going for all things are possible in life with positive energy and love.”

YouTube Videos

Ashton Kutcher Speech

Kyle Cease-Why People's Opinions of you aren't real