The day before I started my internship I spent the entire day moving into a new apartment in the area. The entire time I was unpacking, washing, and organizing all I could think about was what was going to happen the following day at 7:30am. It may sound crazy, but the thing I was most nervous about was actually arriving to work on time. I have never had to actually be at work dressed up in business casual at such an early time. My old office job I got to come in at 9am, so there was a big difference with my 45-minute commute on the subway. I went over the route I was going to take repeatedly in my head, in a subconscious attempt to memorize the transfers, and literally every step I was going to take.

Despite all my worrying and to my surprise, going to work on my first day went very smoothly. I didn’t oversleep, get lost, nor did anyone mug me. (Yes, I’m aware that is a silly thing to think might happen) I easily got to work with 5 minutes to spare, and walked in to the building feeling as if I had just won the lottery. I’ve realized over my twenty years that it’s the small victories in life like being on time to work when you’ve never really used public transportation before, that matter.

After I had successfully gotten past the security in the building and up to the 30^th floor, I immediately met another intern who had been interning all spring and was very friendly. This took away a lot of my nerves, because he was casual and seemed like he had really been enjoying his time with the company. As soon as I had settled in, I was put right to work, which I had been expecting. Before this day I had never really been around a lot of investment bankers, but trust me, from the first time I met these professionals I could tell they were a “different breed” as some would say. These women and men work ridiculous hours; some of them even sleep at the office! I truly felt honored to meet such driven individuals. In all honesty, I know that I never want to be an investment banker; however, their motivation is something that everyone can take into their own professional life as well as personal life.

Meeting all the people in the company was the biggest thing that stood out to me on my first day, not so much the actual work I was doing. I think this goes to show how important the culture is at the company you look to work for in the future. After my first day, I had met over 75% of the people that work in the office most of whom sought me out and introduced themselves. Even the founder of the company and one of the hardest workers took the time to ask me how my first day was going and talk to me about Babson specifically. I’m looking forward to learning from all the people around me this summer, as well as how I can apply all that I am learning to my career.