Hi everyone! Long time no read! Right now I’m interning at PricewaterhouseCoopers in their assurance practice in Dallas. I thought now would be a good time to talk a little bit about my experience so far and give some perspective on the ominous MPA internship. I’ll try to make a blog every week, so hopefully some of my many fans might benefit.

Moving to Dallas has been quite the shock for me despite the fact that I have done my fair share of travelling. I’ve been all over the U.S., traveled through the Middle East, and even lived in Bangkok for two years. But moving to Dallas, just a couple of hours from Austin, has been really something. Not only has there been a psychological shift, but in the span of a week: I got into some serious paperwork trouble, I got into a car accident, and I went to the gym everyday (for that last one I’m just bragging). Similar to school, I have always been held liable for my actions. Except now it doesn’t involve just going to office hours or studying harder. Instead I am learning how to deal with people that don’t necessarily want to be dealt with. I’ll tell you, dealing with strangers is a lot more time consuming and difficult than dealing with group members for a class project.

Despite a few hiccups, the overall transition has been a relatively peaceful one. I just started working at the client site, and though it’s not quite as exciting as I had hoped accounting would be, I’m getting to see some real world application (albeit a small amount so far) of transactional policies. Meeting the staff and other interns has been enjoyable and I’m definitely learning a lot about the corporate life and the best ways to present yourself to co-workers and clients.

There are a lot of intangible qualities that I think people don’t really think about when they’re working for the first time. Things come up that can really set you back, but the nice thing about the “real world” is that grades don’t define who you are. Sure there are performance evaluations, but they aren’t quite as looming as seeing a B or C on your UT grade report (I would know). Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to reconcile a bank statement…

Best regards,
Jamal

Continue reading with Part 2 of The Pur$uit of Happine$$!