My Internship Experience

Have you ever heard someone say they look forward to going to work because it’s just like going home? Probably not, but if you have that is awesome news because it means that person was just as lucky as I have been over the past seven months. As an intern at BCR® Wealth, I have had the pleasure of coming into an office filled with kind faces who asked how I was doing and genuinely wanted to hear my answer. They celebrated my ups, showed concern for my downs, and held back nothing when teaching about their processes and the nature of the field. The atmosphere was full of laughter and witty banter all weaved into the seriousness that accompanied doing our jobs at our highest ability to help our clients achieve their goals. My questions never went without answers, and from my first day, I was trusted and treated as a valued part of the team.

I was introduced to BCR when Marshall and Jay came to give a presentation during one of my grad classes. Unlike many of the other presentations we had witnessed that semester, these guys seemed happy, unrehearsed, and passionate about doing their job. They said the best part of their job was seeing the positive impact financial planning had in their client’s lives. Their presentation inspired me to sign up for a financial planning overview class the next semester. Unfortunately, the class gave a bleak overview of a financial field that seemed to operate on commissions, sad stories of people who had waited too late to pay attention their finances, and cookie-cutter plans that followed a one-size-fits-all mentality. I was worried that the guys at BCR had simply played charades to make their presentation stand out and had misrepresented what financial planning actually looked like in reality. Regardless of who painted the more realistic picture, I had been granted a chance to intern with BCR and would soon find out.

I was pleasantly surprised to find the experience that BCR provides for its clients is far from the case studies we covered in my grad class. At BCR, they do more than just recite their core values, they go a step further and LIVE them. If you have interacted with anyone at the company, then you have probably heard them mention the phrase “provide peace of mind,” and the end goal in everything they do, is to achieve exactly that for each client. Each client is treated like one-of-a-kind with personalized profiles, goal planning, and progress meetings as necessary. At BCR not only do they help their clients get on a path to reach the finish line; they run the race with them. Clients and client successes are truly the heartbeat of the company, and it has been refreshing to work for a company who believes in investing in people and placing progress over profit.

I am sincerely grateful to the team at BCR for allowing an accounting nerd like me to come in and gain hands-on experience in a field of interest, pick their brains with endless questions, and be treated like an asset. The work being done here is important and life-changing, not only for clients but for anyone who gets to be a part of the process. The team here is comprised of individuals who showcase a combination of professional will and personal humility that is hard to find and remarkable to learn from. It is a group of people who set lofty goals and are not afraid to embark on trying them or fall short, learn something from trying and get right back at it. My internship has given me a second home, a second family, and an irreplaceable wealth of knowledge. My time here has been a truly unique experience that I would gladly embark on again. Thank you BCR Wealth for investing in me and giving me a chance to help you make a difference.

-Jasmine Pettaway-