I hope everyone has enjoyed the first Lunch Series post. After the first week of training in Dallas, all the interns flew back to their respective home offices and began the first official week of work. PwC gave all the interns the opportunity to rotate between two groups during the ten-week internship, and I was fortunate enough to be paired with my top two choices: Federal and International Tax Services (ITS).

I started my internship at the Houston office with the Federal group. The first week was filled with online training on independence, ethics, Circular 230, firm values etc. and mini projects from various managers. However, my official project started on the following week, and I moved down to a conference room (auditor-style!) with my teammates. Some of the other interns asked me if I liked being in such proximity with my teammates five days a week, and I really liked it. For me, it was easy access to ask seniors questions, to learn about my coworkers, and to interact with them almost effortlessly because we were all in a room together.

I’ve also learned a lot about partnership returns (to which I have not had the academic exposure) and depletion schedules (which is more specific to oil and gas accounting). Even though I am usually the type who likes to figure things out for herself, I have learned that the most efficient and effective way to learn is to ask questions. The unique aspect about my first engagement at PwC is that quite a few of the past interns have stayed on the engagement as full-time hires, so they truly understand the confusion an intern could have. I am fortunate in many ways to start my internship with a close-knit group who is very welcoming to interns (even deeply confused ones like me!), which encourages me to enter into my rotation at ITS starting this Monday.

Below is a picture from our intern event on the opening day of the Houston Rodeo. The concert headliner was Rascal Flatts!!

I cannot believe that the last time I updated was well over a month ago–I apologize for my long absence from the MPA blog scene! I am currently in my fifth week of tax internship at the Houston PricewaterhouseCoopers and, believe it or not, just getting a bit more used to a full workday schedule. That is the reason I thought of this lunch series that allows me to offer a quick update of my internship life.

Since I have so much to update, let me just start from the beginning. Soon after (I mean a day, really!) the accelerated semester ended on February 13, I drove down with two friends after a frenzied evening of sleepless packing. On February 16, I was on a brief flight to Dallas for PwC’s week-long intern training. The training was held in the DFW Hyatt Regency, and we barely left the hotel the whole week due to scheduling. Forty-five interns in total attended the training, and everyone was from a Texas school, though not everyone was going to an internship site within Texas. Actually, we had quite a few interns going to New York, one going to the DC area, and another going to the Atlanta office. Continue reading Internship Lunch Series #1: The Orientation →