My internship is absolutely perfect for me. This week has been amazing. I have learned so much, explored Dublin, met new people, and even saw some puffins! Working at Flynn O’Driscoll has been a great experience so far. I am a finance and accounting intern and my main goal for the internship is to prepare the company for their upcoming audit on July 1st. This is my first ever internship and I was not expecting how drained I would feel after working a 9 to 5. This week was only a four day week because of the bank holiday on Monday, and I learned something important from it. The Irish take work life balance extremely seriously. Once a month they observe a bank holiday, which is simply a free day to give everyone a long weekend. It may seem like a small thing, but coming from a culture that tends to glorify being busy, I really appreciate that idea and find myself thinking about what it would look like to carry that mindset home with me.

The team I am working with is also incredibly kind. I am grateful that they made my transition into the role so comfortable. They brought me into the fold of the team very quickly and have taken a genuine interest in my studies, assignments, and personal life. I am working at a large firm, but having a small immediate team makes it easier to digest all of the information being thrown at me every day. Being 19 and working at a large company in a foreign country is overwhelming at times, but I genuinely enjoy my coworkers and have even made friends with other interns. There are 12 other interns working across different soliciting departments within the company. Even though I am separated from them as a finance intern, they have welcomed me into their group without hesitation. Irish culture is warm and welcoming, and I could not be happier that I chose Dublin. I am finding that I fit in very well here.

Now, to this week’s prompt: time management. Going into this internship, I assumed time management would look the way it does in school, juggling multiple deadlines, switching between tasks, and constantly reprioritizing. What I found instead was something quite different, and honestly more nuanced.

This week my workload was fairly focused. Rather than managing several competing tasks, I was given one primary responsibility at a time and expected to execute it with care and precision. My main project has been cleaning and organising the accounting filing system at Flynn O’Driscoll. Early on I noticed the existing Excel file required manual currency conversions, so I built in a formula to automatically convert transactions from USD, GBP, and other currencies into euros. It was a small change, but it made the file significantly cleaner and easier to navigate. After completing that, I moved on to filing transactions from 2025 and 2026 into the company’s internal system called Evolve. Navigating the platform came naturally, which was a relief, but the work itself required a level of attention that made speed impossible. Every case code, matter code, and transaction amount had to match exactly across both SharePoint and Evolve so that when the auditor arrives on July 1st, everything is clean and accessible. Almost everyone at the firm is working toward that same deadline right now, which makes the stakes feel very real.

Three days of the same task did get repetitive, and I will be honest about that. But I found that the time management challenge was less about juggling priorities and more about sustaining focus on something that demanded accuracy over speed. That is a different kind of discipline, and one I did not expect to be working on this early.

Looking ahead, I have already spoken with my manager about taking on more responsibilities. I want to get my hands on as much work as possible to diversify what I am learning and make the most of the time I have here. I also cannot wait to begin shadowing in the mergers and acquisitions department after the audit wraps up. Flynn O’Driscoll was ranked number one in M&A in Ireland in 2025, so that opportunity alone feels like something worth working toward.

Overall this week has been productive, eye opening, and genuinely fun. If you ever find yourself in Dublin, I highly recommend booking a boat tour to see the puffins on the Eye of Ireland. Absolutely worth it.