This past week I started my internship at Casey Kennedy Estate Agents. I was pretty nervous going into my first day and going to a company where I have no idea really who anyone is. I started my day by getting up early around 7am Dublin time which is 2am Pittsburgh time. The time difference still gets me everyday. I got ready quickly and then realized I had a lot of spare time so I got to relax and figure out where I was going to my internship. My internship is located in South of Dublin which is a little less city like more suburban area. While all my other EUSA colleagues were going towards city center. I was going the opposite direction. I have to walk 10 minutes to my bus station and then across a bridge that’s above a highway (a little scary). Then I can get on pretty much any bus option that they give me because it is such a straight shot to my company. I was thinking I was going to be on the bus for at least like 15 minutes so I had left at like 9:30 my first day on the job. Well it ended up being a 5 minute bus ride from UCD and I showed up 20 minutes early for my first day. I was greeted nicely by my coworkers it felt so awkward being the only American in the building and having my accent compared to all the Irish accents around me.

My supervisor Janet introduced me to my colleagues Eliza and James who I will be working with for majority of the internship. James recently graduated real estate school here in Dublin and Eliza is currently a student in real estate school as well. They introduced me to the website at CKP where I was looking at any suggestions and improvements I had ideas for. I got introduced into a lot of administrative tasks that help the behind the scenes of the company. I honestly was able to learn so much about the behind the scenes of what you think is just a small real estate company in Dublin. Most of my tasks were doing registrations for properties that clients had inquired about and then also doing accounting and creating invoices for clients that had tenants in properties. I have doing a lot of work in the property management sector of real estate but I’ve also gotten to work in the residential side traveling to many different properties. We didn’t have many tasks the first week I went through a lot of training so I did not have to worry too much about managing time and tasks. I am usually given one tasks to complete and then I will ask for another or I will go on to another showing or listing shadowing an agent or junior agent. I am hoping in the next week to be given more tasks and able to have more of an impact on the company. It has been great getting to learn and help out a smaller company.

I was very surprised my first day when I was told there was another intern at the company who was from Germany as well so that may have been the most interesting thing that happened in week one she had been here for her apprenticeship school only interning for 3 weeks so it was nice to meet her and learn about her experience at the company before she was leaving on Friday that week. She was living a totally different experience than me living with a host family and taking a 1 hour 30 minute commute to the office everyday while I was living at an university and taking my 15 minute commute to the office everyday.

I learned that in Europe real estate is seen more as a trade and if you’re not interested in getting a college degree a lot of young people pursue a career in real estate going to 2 years of classes. While in the United States in some states you just need a 60 hour course at self pace and then sign up for the test. Overall I had a great first week overall getting acclimated to my new company and first real corporate style job and I am grateful for the experience.