Summer in NYC

This past summer I was fortunate enough to intern at one of the Big Four Accounting Firms, Ernst & Young, LLP, in their Times Square office. As a public accounting major, I was thrilled to gain experience in the public accounting corporate world so early on in my career. At EY, I was a part of the Launch program, which is an internship program for underrepresented groups to gain corporate experience. My Launch class was over 60 students across the Northeast Region in EY offices ranging from New York City, Boston, Buffalo, and Providence.

EY Office in Times Square

View from the cafeteria

As an intern in the Launch program, I had the opportunity to shadow in both Tax and Assurance to get a feel for which side of accounting I would like to pursue. Within the Real Estate tax group, I got to review K-1 tax forms for real estate trusts. While shadowing on assurance side of the firm, I had the opportunity to visit different Real Estate client sites for audit work. For the rest of my time at the firm, I interned with EY Knowledge, which is an internal research group for the firm. In my group, I analyzed Big Data in excel (something I learned in my Information Systems core classes), which was then used for high-level decision-making by executives. The Launch program also brought in many speakers from both within and outside the firm for us to learn some more professional development skills. One of my favorite speakers was Kwame Jackson, runner up in Season 1 of The Apprentice and now very successful entrepreneur.

Myself and some other interns with Kwame Jackson

One of the best parts of the Launch program was the opportunity to work with a group of interns on a project throughout the eight-week program. I was working with four other interns from different schools on a consulting project that we presented on the last day of our internship to EY associates and managers. Receiving feedback on our ideas and presentation skills from people who are currently doing the work we want to do in the future was invaluable. It allowed us to apply all of the concepts we learned in classes to a typical presentation seen in the workplace on a daily basis.

My group on presentation day!