Written by: Stephen Vedda
Stephen is going into his senior year at the Ohio State University majoring in finance. Prior to OSU, Stephen earned his Associate of Arts degree from Cuyahoga Community College in business. He is currently interning with Colliers | Columbus on the accounting team. Keep reading for insight into Stephen's intern experience.
What has been your favorite project to work on throughout your time at Colliers?
A project I just finished working on was helping update the general ledger accounts in MRI by removing those that we no longer use. Tenants can change often so keeping the system up to date is important for allowing everything to run smoothly. Looking through the over 2,000 accounts also helped with understanding their different uses and why so many are necessary. I appreciated the chance to take a deeper look at a system I still have much to learn about.
What has been the biggest lesson you will take away from this internship?
I think the biggest lesson I have learned is the importance of working in an environment where you feel comfortable, especially when it comes to an internship. It can be scary for an intern to speak up when they do not know something that may feel obvious to others. I have never felt that fear in my time here at Colliers. Everybody in the accounting department has been extremely helpful when I have had questions and have never made me feel like I do not belong. There is no substitute for on-the-job experience and that comes with many questions that you do not think of until you come across something new. As someone who had never posted a journal entry or had to index hundreds of invoices each week before working here, most days involved seeing something I had not seen before. Working in an environment where everybody is on the same page with helping each other and feels like a team has made my experience here a rewarding one.
What aspects of commercial real estate has this internship made you more interested in?
My experience with real estate before my time at Colliers did not go any farther than reading about it as an investment, and that mostly involved housing and little mention of the upkeep expenses that come with it. The most interesting part of the internship has been seeing the various invoices and all the different expenses involved with managing commercial real estate. Reading a financial statement and seeing how the money flows might not be very engaging for everybody, but it has helped me with understanding a market I did not know much about. After my time here I can certainly say that I am more interested in following the commercial real estate market in the years to come.