By Rachel Lee, Investments Intern

I really enjoyed my experience this summer at the Pension Boards-UCC (PBUCC). I found the community I walked into to be the most rewarding, from my mentors, managers, staff, and fellow interns. Through the various interactions, whether it was the weekly leadership roundtables or participating in manager calls with the Investments Team, I have thoroughly learned from every single person I’ve interacted with.

Coming into the Pension Boards, I wasn’t super familiar with the structure of the firm or much investment-based knowledge. After these 10 weeks, though, I can say that I am much more connected with not just the philosophy and structure of the operations, but also have developed a personal connection with the members PBUCC serves. Likewise, the entire internship is well thought-out, planned, and executed. Through the Capstone Project and Investments Team projects, I could sense that my work was meaningful and contributing to an impactful cause.

This internship has also exposed me to a variety of different avenues to grow professionally. Through the Roundtable Sessions, I was able to connect with, network, and learn from accomplished individuals within the firm and ask for career advice. It was also extremely motivating to see how everyone followed their own unique path to end up where they did.

With the Capstone Project, I was able to work together with the other interns as a team to collaboratively research, outline, and present our framework to better connect with UCC clergy by connecting topics of mental health and financial decision-making. Through this, I was able to learn more about the structure of PBUCC, connect with others, and overall explore avenues of topics that I haven’t considered before.

While working with the Investments Team, I was able to sit in on many manager calls, which gave me the exposure to learn about many different investment firms, structure, philosophy etc. Likewise, I also researched and analyzed the Core Fixed Income Team’s Green Bonds. Collectively, these two experiences not only increased my “real-world” application and understanding of ESG and Sustainability, but also helped me to discover my own passions in my career in more concrete ways.

Overall, PBUCC’s internship was an excellent opportunity to grow both personally and professionally. I have developed a deeper understanding of my career passions and my future goal alignments. Of course, none of this could have been possible without the amazing people I’ve met this summer and have had the opportunity to collaborate with, learn from, or speak to. I will carry what I’ve learned this summer throughout the rest of my career.