Explore Caralyne’s dynamic journey through estimating, accounting, and fieldwork during her unique rotating internship. From developing innovative programs to setting precast, her experiences reflect the diverse nature of our work. Join us as Caralyne offers insights into the challenges, learnings, and mentorship at JP Cullen.
I would say every day was unique, not only because of the nature of the tasks I was doing but also because I had a rotating internship. I spent three to four weeks in both estimating and accounting and then I spent two and a half weeks in the field. I started out in estimating with the Lakeland Training which was an old job that the team bid and kept. That took several days to go through and it’s a great way to see the whole process of takeoff and quantifying objects. Then after that, I continued to help with taking off and quantifying smaller objects on creatures [EPIC Campus]. Being that I am an accounting major, Sam Potts, my direct report, asked me to put together a template for budget presentations for the co-owners of the company. I used Excel and PowerPoint to streamline the process and generate a hard point that can be used for these presentations.
When it came to accounting, every day was a little bit different because I was consistently given a new task to expand my horizons. Specifically, I created a program using power query in Excel to allocate the costs of Procore to different job codes. It was an interesting task that unlocked things I learned from school that I did not think I would ever use again.
For my final weeks at Cullen, Tony Carns was my direct report on-site, and he allowed me to experience lots of different things. I went up in the boom lift and the scissor lift. He taught me how to weld and I helped set precast panels by making sure they were level and using the laser to make sure that they were straight. I also spoke to Tony about process improvement and why the job site was efficient.
The most challenging tasks for Estimating were creating the presentation for Sam or helping quantify creatures. For accounting it was learning ECMS, but also tapping into the knowledge I have gained from school and expanding that using power query and excel. I created several different automated processes and graph generations to show subcontractor risk, which was interesting to learn.
The biggest thing that stood out to me is when I was in estimating I didn’t want to leave it because I loved Sam Potts so much and I thought, there’s no way I’m going to have a direct report that I like as much as Sam. Then I got to accounting and I thought, Mike is amazing, I don’t want to leave accounting because I love Mike and he challenges me. Then I got out to the field, and I could not have asked for a better field direct report than Tony. Every step along the way, my direct reports were amazing and tried their best to make sure I got everything I could out of my internship experience.
Interested in becoming one of our interns for the Summer of 2024? Check out our intern positions and apply today!
