Getting to work as a summer associate with Wharton Gladden this summer has been one of the most valuable, rewarding, and empowering experiences of my life.

This summer, I learned an immense amount of technical skills and knowledge ranging from hands on DCF analysis to analyzing market data and income/loss statements. As an ambitious student working toward a career in finance, ideally investment banking, I gained incredible insight in to the field and industry.

The hands on experience with financial models remains one of the most interesting and valuable skills I am thankful for being exposed to. In addition to the technical skills, the tens of hours in front of Microsoft excel and late nights in the office, the Wharton Gladden internship succeeded in developing me both personally and professionally. Outside of our assigned tasks and projects, our frequent discussions with Mr. Cash, and coordinated work as a team of interns, showed me how important relationship building is in the business world.

Mr. Cash and Wharton Gladden challenged me every step of the way and allowed me to learn through real experiences. I was never asked to fetch coffee, never told to do anything belittling, and never treated as just some college student. Wharton Gladden respected me, trusted me, and allowed me to learn through my own trial and error. I gained valuable insight in to my own strengths as a student and a person and recognized how and where I will be able to thrive going forward in my life.

One of the biggest and most difficult parts of the internship came during the annual case competition. During the case competition I was able to work closely with one of my fellow interns and felt, firsthand, a fraction of how much goes in to a live deal. We suffered setbacks and computer difficulties; played phone tag and sent countless emails to get the information we needed; we had late nights and long days, but we succeeded in relentlessly persevering the way Mr. Cash encouraged us to. At the very end of it all we gave a 20 minute presentation in front of our fellow interns and Mr. Cash and had to defend our work against scrutiny.

On the first day, Mr. Cash told us that we would return to our respective universities knowing more than 98% of all of our peers about real estate investing and financing. I would take it a step further and say that we know more than 99.9% of our peers about this industry. Now, when I drive around and see apartment complexes, shopping centers, and new construction projects, I often wonder aloud at the cost to build or the NOI of the property. I have found that this internship and the lessons I learned while in it has completely changed the way I see the world around me.

I know how to better network effectively, what my own priorities need to be to be to reach what I feel success is for myself. I better recognize that good business comes through relationship building and trust. After spending time with Mr. Cash I have completely bought in to the importance of building good relationships.

I had the privilege of meeting with executive partners working with in the industry and learning more about what I can do over the next to years to help reach the goals I have set for myself. I want to give my sincerest thank you to Scott Bauer of Bauer, Clarke, and associates and Leah price of BB&T for taking the time out of their incredibly busy schedules to meet with me and offer their wisdom.

To me fellow interns, I will miss you all. We really were a great group together; all with our own role within the group, and it really was fun to work with you all this summer.

And most of all, I want to thank Mr. Cash and all of Wharton gladden for giving me this opportunity to work with them and allow me to demonstrate my value as an aspiring financial professional. This summer has laid a solid foundation for me as a student, a professional, and most importantly a person, as I continue to work hard every single day toward my professional life.

I cannot express how grateful I am for the opportunity to work with Wharton Gladden. I learned how to financial model, I worked with DCF analysis, and more than anything I grew both personally and professionally.

Elon University student, Alex Francis, authored this guest article about his experience in the Wharton Gladden Developing Excellence Summer Internship Program.