Rolling down the interstate, gazing in awe as the Hill Country slowly becomes vibrant with the life of spring, I begin to reflect upon the experiences of the past ten weeks. I turn up Led Zeppelin on the radio and try to make sense of a whirlwind of the emotions endured from invincibility to hopelessness to redemption. Finally, once I’m in range, I switch from Zeppelin to KVET only to be reminded, “Ain’t it great to be alive in Austin, Texas?” Thus, as I was constantly reminded during my internship, it was time to stop worrying for a while and just enjoy the rest of the day.

Back in Austin, I will follow up my Recruiter Series with an Internship Series. (Note—As per MPA guidelines, I will not refer to any organization or person by name.) As my usual tradition though, I’ll start with tidbits. So, while I was auditing…

Bust out your DANCIN’ SHOES!

In case you haven’t noticed from all of my other blogs, I’m a tremendous college hoops fan! Anyone that knows me personally knows that I will temporarily change my major from Accounting to Bracketology. The NCAA Tournament is one of the only events I will actually wake up early to watch. (The other being the National Spelling Bee; I’ll save a lot of blog for that in June.)

The Longhorns earned a #4 seed in the tournament and will face Oakland on Friday. The Horns finished second in the Big XII this year and take a balanced attack into the tournament. If they win, then they’ll face the winner of Arizona and Memphis. Both Arizona and Memphis are in the tournament for the first time under second-year head coaches Sean Miller and Josh Pastner; should the Horns win on Friday, they’ll have their hands full on Sunday with either of these teams.

Congratulations to two future Longhorns

This is a shout-out to two fellow interns who were accepted into the Texas MPA program traditional approach in February. Congratulations, and I cannot wait to see you on campus in the fall!

Hello, Audit Team!

It was also discovered during my final engagement that I blogged for Texas MPA, so this is a shout-out to my team! Thank you all for making so much time fly by! (From now on, queso will always hold a special place in my heart.)

Okay, so about that internship…

What was this internship?

I interned with a Big 4 firm in Dallas. I spent one week in training, eight weeks doing three engagements, then a week doing a mock proposal project. The industries of these clients were vast, from toll road consulting to mining to hospitality. There were about thirty interns in this office: the majority of which were from SMU, Texas, and Texas A&M; however, geographically the range of interns came from as far away as BYU-Idaho and Louisiana Tech and Purdue.

What did you do on a daily basis?

Being a learning process, my first couple weeks were very much instructional compared to the latter weeks. This was the overall gist though: I’d get an account balance and have to check it for certain attributes, like Is everything that’s supposed to be here actually here? Are the numbers correct? Do these transactions pertain to this reporting period? Etc. Then I’d run some tests to prove the answers to these questions. Being reasonable assurance, these tests would almost always involve some sort of statistical principle.

Did Fort Worth ever cross your mind?

Yes. One of my engagements was in Fort Worth, and I was assigned there for three weeks. Fort Worth definitely has a different charm than Dallas. It has, what I would consider, a more walkable downtown with the competitive nature down just a notch from Dallas. (If you as a reader have any second thoughts concerning location, know that this is a legitimate option.)

Did you use anything you learned in class?

Well, yeah, of course. You need to have some sort of backing in terms of statistics, auditing, and accounting background. What you don’t learn in class are the nuances of the business—timing, staring at a laptop for extended hours, sitting for extended hours, temperament, etc. Are these hard to learn? No, these come with experience.

What was the biggest shock for you, and what advice would you have on that?

My biggest shock was not realizing the nuances of auditing right away. There were suddenly fewer instances in which I could look something up for the answer and come up with a good decision. For example, because auditing relies so much on professional judgment, my firm’s audit manual didn’t give out step-by-step instructions on how to audit per se; thus, I found myself learning in a sort of…primitive trial-and-error manner, which is something that I have not been accustomed to in years. Thus, for a couple of weeks I was just vehemently frustrated.

My advice? Relax. Realize that mistakes happen, and you’re going to make them—and you’re not a bad auditor because you make a mistake as an intern. Always remember to enjoy your internship and don’t put an unreasonable amount of pressure on yourself. Yes, you have to hustle—you don’t have a full-time offer just yet, but putting expectations on yourself that don’t make sense will just take years off of your life.

I remember the first time my dad said, “Drive around the block.” I was 17 and ecstatic. I started the car, put it into gear, got out of the driveway, drove to the stop sign. My dad said, “Not bad.” Then I stopped at the stop sign; now I can’t say what my dad said, but, to make a long story short, I nearly gave him whiplash. The point of my story is that no one’s a good driver the first couple times they get behind the wheel. It takes experience and practice before you barely get decent. Same thing with auditing: the process of learning how to test an account will come slowly the same way learning to squeeze the brake came slowly.

Anyways, I’m off to walk off the queso…