Bank of America INTERN'S NYC/EHS EXPERIENCE

MY EHS Summer Experience

In the beginning, I was nervous about living in a busy city like New York. I’ve had friends tell me stories about how expensive it was, the overwhelming number of people and the love/hate ability of always having something to do, which can be helpful or harmful depending on how you prioritize your time. My name is Giancarlos Merced, I am originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico; I go to school at Syracuse University. The reason for me looking for a place to live in New York City for the summer is due to attaining an internship through my school.

I secured an internship with Bank of America by attending some informational sessions during the spring semester of 2017. I knew since the beginning, that if I were to be accepted I would want to live in New York City, despite my friends’ comments. The uniqueness of being able to live in New York City even for three months is exciting to me. Of course, I had my worries: First, about finding a good place to live; Second, identifying how much money I would earn and spend; Finally, if I was going to make any friends outside of my workplace. EHS helped me solve all these worries.

How did I find out about EHS in the first place?
Well, Bank of America sent me a list of different companies and locations of where to live in the city; EHS was one of them. I must admit, EHS was not my first option. I carefully went over every single option, writing down the pros and cons of living in each place (Location, price, neighborhood safety, reading other’s experience). After a few hours of doing so, I decided for EHS New Yorker. The idea of living right in the middle of Midtown was exciting and scary at the same time. One of the reasons for me choosing the New Yorker location was the number of things to do around the area and the proximity to the metro station (Penn Station is across the street).

My internship was to start on June 5th while I had to move-in on the 4th. I was a bit nervous knowing I only had 24 hours to move-in and organize my room before starting my internship. Luckily, the move-in process went smoothly. Check-in only took around fifteen minutes and the staff at the New Yorker were helpful in answering all the questions I had. There was an ice-breaker for our first day moving in, which I liked. There I got to meet several other students that were also interning in the city. It was a great event. There was food, music, beverages, and just a great vibe in general. I knew I wasn’t going to regret choosing EHS as my summer housing.

Going back to my internship, I was working for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The line of business I was assigned to was Corporate Communications. For some reason, I thought I would be placed at One Bryant Park right next to where the Bank of America building is located on 42nd street; I was wrong. I got word of where I was going to be placed a week before moving into EHS. I was placed downtown near the One World Trade Center. I did not make a big deal about this because I had Penn Station across the street but, I did not expect to have to take the metro every-day. One way I got around this was purchasing a metro card with a monthly time slot. Looking back now, it was one of the best purchases I made the entire summer.

At my workplace, I felt very comfortable just being myself and not having to be someone that I am not. My feedback and input were greatly appreciated by my co-workers and manager. I also liked that at my workplace there were two people that had done the same program a couple of years ago and secured full-time positions right after. That gave me a sense of security knowing that if I put in the hard work, I would be asked to come back while finishing my final school year. The tasks at my internship were simple yet stimulating. Most of the time I was pulling reports from my manager and organizing them using excel. It had been a while since I used excel, but doing those small tasks daily definitely helped strengthen that skill. Besides pulling reports, I was also attending daily and weekly meetings with senior vice presidents and executives. This gave me tremendous exposure to the corporate side of my internship as well as an insightful look at what being in corporate communications was like. One thing that surprised me about my internship was how open executives were when I asked them if they had time for a short meeting. That completely changed my perspective on corporate executives. I had envisioned these people to be almost inaccessible but I was proved wrong. Luckily I met with five executives and over ten senior vice presidents during my internship. Each meeting was enlightening and thought-provoking. Sometimes I tend to forget that these are people with lives outside the bank and not just employees of a 250,000 plus company.

Since I was working 9 to 5, every day I returned to my room exhausted not wanting to do anything but relax and prepare for the following day. I was fortunate enough to get acquainted with great people. I met Cameron from California, Yuki from Japan, and Pavel from Bulgaria. All three of them were attending Stella Adler Acting school. All three had graduated college and were looking for acting as another path to explore this summer.

I must admit, my experience at EHS would not have been the same without them. Every day we would meet at the kitchen and share daily stories about work (for me) and school (for them). We would give each other support and advice on everything; Sundays we would watch Game of Thrones together along with other students from EHS and analyze each episode (as if I was an actor myself) in a fun way.

Apart from learning how to cook different meals each one of us loved, we also had a great time hanging around New York City. Usually, we would meet in my room (1804) and plan on where to go for the night. Bars, clubs, rooftop bars, comedy shows, and even Broadway plays were some of the fun things we did together this summer. We wouldn’t stop there; during the day, we would participate in EHS events like walking around the neighborhood, crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, or grabbing brunch at the nearest rooftop bar to enjoy the summer views. Every day felt as if our friendship was strengthening. So much that during move out day, we made the unanimous decision to visit each other in our home countries. Before Yuki returns to Japan, he would spend a couple of days in California with Cameron. I will visit Yuki in Japan while studying abroad in October and Cameron will join Yuki and me for a backpacking trip in Vietnam during December. If that’s not what you call friendship, I don’t know what is. I have to thank EHS for that.

Overall, I had an amazing time this summer. I never thought I would get to meet amazing people like Cameron, Pavel, and Yuki. I had some expectations about living in New York City but they were surpassed by a lot. My most proud accomplishment for this summer would be my internship. This was my first experience working for a big company like Bank of America. The networking opportunities and exposure I had in a short time-span of ten-weeks were invaluable. I heard my friends talk about their internship experiences and most of didn’t like it at all. Why? Well, most of the time all they did was dull tasks like printing documents, fetching coffee for their bosses so on and so forth. I’m not trying to generalize but this is what five of my friends said to me.

In contrast, I had the opportunity to network with senior leaders within the corporate communications team, manage my own projects with minor supervision, I was invited to attend meetings and provide feedback on future projects and develop great professional and personal friendships along the way. I was able to meet with my entire team (20 people) during those ten weeks as well as with executives from different lines of business. I am not mentioning all these in a bragging sense, I just wanted to share the amazing experience I had while interning at Bank of America. I will miss my co-workers, my manager, my mentor, my friends at EHS and most of all, New York City. Each of them made this summer an unforgettable one. Through each of them, I challenged myself, grew mentally and professionally in ways I never thought of before. I remember my second to last day at Bank of America, my co-workers organized a farewell party. They brought cupcakes and took half an hour off their busy schedules to eat and chat with an intern (their first) whom they only met for ten weeks. That to me said a lot about the kind of people I was working with.

Besides the small farewell that was prepared by my co-workers, my other favorite memory from my internship was getting to meet Valerie Biden Owens – Joe Biden’s sister. This was an event organized by our Global Marketing and Corporate Affairs team at the bank. The theme for this was “Confidence at the Table” where interns learned the how to properly have lunch, dinner, and drink in a business setting. I learned about the different styles of dining: Continental and American. To be honest, I thought continental dining was just a formal name like continental breakfast instead of an actual dining style on its own. I will give an example: Continental style requires you to have the fork on the left-hand-side with the tines pointing downwards whereas, in American dining, the fork goes on the left side when cutting the food, set it down, switch to the right-hand side, and then proceed to bring the food to your mouth. Something as simple as this changed my entire perspective on dining. Especially since I am lefthanded, this was challenging at first but with a bit of practice, I was able to properly do it. Another area where Valerie was of great help was in networking and body language. She taught us simple yet important techniques
regarding this area. Being a certified trainer in body language, Valerie was the right person to teach us interns about body language. All serious work aside, Valerie was approachable, friendly but firm, tough yet charming, her charisma and enthusiasm made all the difference in making this experience one of the best about my internship with Bank of America. Looking back at these great experiences, if I had the opportunity to go back in time and tell myself something about the summer it would be: Don’t rush, everything falls into place, just go with it. I would say this because before coming to the city one of my main worries was making friends, enjoying the city without the need to spend a lot of money, and as I mentioned before since Bank of America would be my first corporate experience, I had a preconceived notion of what to expect. Thankfully, everything went great and I have no regrets about anything that I did this summer.

For those that plan to spend the summer in New York City whether it is to do an internship or just reside in it, I would say to not have any high expectations. New York City is a world of its own. There will always be something to do, see, try, and appreciate. It is up to your mindset and disposition to make the best out of anything that happens. Of course, nothing is 100% perfect and I know that but out of every negative experience, something positive comes out of it. This applies to the internship aspect as well. Be willing to keep an open mind and always ask for guidance if you are lost and never try to do something that you don’t fully understand.People are more willing to help than you believe. I encourage anyone that wants to do an internship in New York City to do so. I admit, the Big Apple is not for everyone, but at least give yourself a chance to try it. You might like it or you might not, but it is better to take the risk than look back years from now and think to yourself “what if”.

• Some amenities vary by building; please check official building page to see the full list of amenities.