Jill Falvey Kearney & Company Intern Journal

The Adventure Begins – 07/17/19

When I accepted the internship at Kearney and Company, I was super excited to move to a new place, especially one as bustling as Alexandria, VA and the greater D.C. area.  Of course, you never know what to expect, but everyone I had previously met, and continue to meet, are so warm and welcoming.  They were genuinely excited for me and the other interns to begin this adventure together.  Now that this internship is already halfway over, I can attest that it has indeed been an adventure!

The first week, my intern class decided on our community service project and after narrowing down the options, we chose Semper K9; an organization that “saves two lives at once” by saving rescue dogs and training them to be paired with a wounded veteran. Within the first few weeks, our intern group hosted our first happy hour, which was a Spelling Bee competition, to fundraise for Semper K9. It was a major success and we learned that employees at Kearney are not only great auditors, but great spellers as well! We are planning many other events throughout the summer to fundraise for Semper K9 and we are excited to host and have the Kearney family there to have fun and support a great cause.

Most of the interns are assigned to different engagements, since Kearney audits all facets of the government. The awesome thing is that I’ve been able to “take flight” and travel during my internship! The engagement that I was assigned to allowed me to travel to the different Federal Courts across the United States and audit them. I just recently traveled to Bismarck and Fargo, North Dakota and I am leaving next week to go to Tulsa, Oklahoma! Being able to travel, interview clients, and perform audit tests on the client sight allowed me to develop my auditing skills, communication skills, and help me gain confidence in the professional world.

I cannot believe we are already halfway done with our internship, but as the saying goes, “time flies when you’re having fun!”

Bittersweet Goodbye: 8/2/2019

Winding down the last week or so of our internship, the interns presented our final projects at the Intern Symposium. We were able to showcase what we had learned and skills we have gained on all our different engagements to our fellow interns, our co-workers, and senior leadership! We shared some challenges we faced as well as some highlights from our internship. It was amazing to see in just a few short months how much our skills and confidence in the workplace significantly improved. This is all thanks to the incredible support of team members, managers, senior leadership, and the whole Kearney family. I believe the company wide support that the interns received is very rare in the workplace today and is a testament to the Kearney culture.

Looking back on my internship, I am very thankful to have been a part of the courts team. I have gained real audit experience that is invaluable to the development of my professional career while learning about our country’s judicial system as well! Throughout the summer, I have made many genuine friends that I plan to keep in contact with after our internship is over. It will for sure be bittersweet saying goodbye to these friends and team members I have come to enjoy seeing every day but knowing I will be able to take what I have learned and apply it to the rest of my career is exciting. I would just like to thank everyone here at Kearney for a wonderful experience. This Summer will definitely be one to remember and I can’t wait to see what the future holds for me and my fellow interns.

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