Internship Academy: Pawan's Summer Experience.
By: Chelsey S., Sr Manager, Communications
Schwab’s Internship Academy can be a rewarding start to an early career. Open to students that are within one year of graduation, interns spend their nine-week paid summer internship engaging in a blend of learning programs, team-building opportunities, networking, and hands-on work projects. But as Pawan T. discovered, sometimes interns gain something unexpected from the program, that is outside the core curriculum.
What you don’t learn in college
If you are over five years into your career you’ve probably forgotten what it feels like for everything to be new. But for some interns, a summer internship is a chance to experience corporate life for the first time and get a glimpse of what may lie ahead.
Pawan is a rising senior at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he’s studying Supply Chain Management and Information Technology Systems. He’s spending the summer at Schwab’s Lone Tree, CO Campus working on multiple projects for the Technology Business Management Office, including designing a front door process, and finding a way to extract data from Jira to be used to inform the business’ cost model.
One of the things that most surprised Pawan was Schwab’s robust intranet, which employees refer to as the “the Schweb.” He’s found it to be an incredible resource and calls it “literally one of the coolest things I’ve seen in my entire life.”
“Having access to that much internal information at your fingertips was something I didn’t even know existed,” he says.
And since no college has a course that teaches you how to survive in a corporate environment, having resources readily available is important.
Pawan says he feels fortunate that he’s found Schwab to be a welcoming place to have his first workplace experience. He had an idea of the culture coming in, since his sister was an intern here four summers ago. But now that he’s been able to experience it for himself, he understands that he’s lucky to be at a company that he describes as “social, helpful and engaging.” In fact, he’s already had 33 different one-on-ones with employees around the company.
Many lessons to be learned
This summer, Pawan’s hoping to learn as much as he can. He’s thankful that he’s been given exposure to multiple projects, so he’ll come away with more experience and an even greater idea of how a place like Schwab ticks.
And outside of work he’s getting another glimpse into the future. Pawan says that for the first time he’s built a schedule that involves dedicated time for cooking, exercising, work, and free time.
“Schwab has helped me build a routine for myself,” he says. “This is what it’s like to live life like an adult.”
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