Hi everyone! I’m back with my second blog post. Again my name is Jarrett Johnson and I will be a rising senior in Pitt Business. I wanted to start my post with a more in-depth introduction about myself as my time here at Pitt has changed me so much and led me to my current internship. In my freshman year, I joined Phi Beta Lambda (PBL), a professional business organization. PBL helped me grow immensely both professionally and socially through activities such as site visits, leadership roles, and speaker series. Perhaps the most important outcome of being in such a great organization was the huge alumni network I can take advantage of. One of the reasons I received my internship offer was because I spoke to several alumni within the company and received advice from them. 

After my first week of training, I began my client work at Ernst & Young (EY) and have been working for two different client companies over the past weeks. EY is one of the four largest accounting/audit companies in the world, aptly named the Big Four. As most of the work at EY revolves around audits, financial statements, and taxes; as a technology risk consulting intern I work on mainly information systems audit tasks. Most people think of financial audits as public companies releasing their 10-ks every year, well as a tech risk intern I work to ensure that the systems that develop these financial statements are safe and accurate. As a result, most of the work surrounds information technology (IT) tasks.

To work on such high-level information has been exciting, some of the largest companies in Pittsburgh and the world are our clients. But recently I have been actively reflecting on what type of work environment I want to work in. Above all else, what I look forward to most in a professional work environment is the ability to have a great team dynamic. You spend 40-60 hours a week with your coworkers. Most of my current team work from home with Tuesday and Thursday being the only days my client team comes into the office. I have had some great conversations and started to create relationships during those two days in the office. But I have been contemplating if this is how I want to work once I graduate. With my sophomore year at Pitt being entirely conducted from home in terms of club meetings, classes, and social events due to the pandemic; this question speaks deeply to me. The question of can you have an engaging first year at a company online? Can you make lifelong friends with your coworkers over Zoom or Microsoft Teams? These questions have been at the forefront of my mind over the past three weeks. The new hybrid model of work has great benefits for both sides and everyone seems to have differing opinions on the matter. What I want to take away most from this internship are the skills that I will learn, both technical and soft skills. I also want to find the answers to my questions.

I want to finish off my second blog post with a recap of a recent intern event that we had. Around 80 interns from the Pittsburgh office, as well as Chicago, went to the Pirates-Cubs game! We have a great time socializing with executives and other interns from both cities.

I’m still very excited about the rest of my internship and the possibilities that it can bring!