A Winter Internship Recap

By Melissa Young
Assurance Intern
Raleigh, NC

It’s hard to believe that three months have passed already. I feel like I just started at McGladrey and finished training only a few weeks ago. Busy season is not yet over for the Raleigh office. I have one more audit scheduled on my calendar. I opened this new engagement’s workpapers and shocked myself by how much I have learned. In January, when I opened my first set of workpapers, I was nervous. It seemed like everything I learned in school flew out of my head the second I opened excel. Also, most in class information was theoretical. I understood the ideas behind tests for certain audit objectives but it was another thing to create and perform those tests. I’ve learned so much in just three months.

To recap my internship: I participated in 2 agreed upon procedures and 5 audits. I’ve audited almost every possible section – cash, investments, operations, salary, equity, accounts payable and accrued expenses, receivables, and debt. I’ve worked in several different industries: non-profits, financial companies, insurance, and healthcare. When you are in the middle of busy season, there’s little time to stop and appreciate just how far you’ve come. I have had a wonderful experience at McGladrey and have learned so much.

I remember back during recruiting season being overwhelmed by all the firms. I had no idea how to begin to figure out where I belonged. One professor told me to relax and meet with as many as possible. “You’ll know your people when you find them,” was his advice. When I met with some of the McG people, it clicked for me. Now many months later, I still feel this way. I’ll be honest, when you travel with a group, you spend a lot of time together. It’s incredibly important that you like the people you work with and don’t mind sharing three meals a day with them. I am incredibly grateful to work with such a great group of people.

Now it’s time for me to pass on my one piece of wisdom to the next class of interns. I made a big mistake in January. I thought that I could complete my internship with McG and also take two online classes and prep for one of the CPA exams. How hard could it be? It’s fine, go ahead and laugh. I drove myself crazy until about halfway through February when I finally dropped one class and rescheduled my exam. The internship is set up to be a full-time job and even taking one class at times is a lot. Trust me, only take, at most, one class while on internship. It’s called busy season for a reason and you will be cheating yourself out of a great learning experience if you over commit yourself. Good luck to all the future interns! And thank you to everyone in the Raleigh office who has made my internship such a fantastic experience!