Written by Grace DeWitt, USC blog contributor
School may not be in session, but many USC student-athletes stayed busy this summer pursuing a variety of internships. As the start of the fall semester approaches, we'll feature some of the unique experiences several Trojans had this offseason.
Name: Julian Jacobs (pictured far left)
Year: Junior
Sport: Men's Basketball
Internship: C.B. Richard Ellis
Grace DeWitt (GD): How did you go about getting your internship?
Julian Jacobs (JJ): My mentor at the internship, Mark Sprague, is Coach Enfield's neighbor. Last year, (former USC football player) Josh Shaw interned for Mark and was one of the only athletes there. Mark wanted to repeat taking on an athlete, so he reached out to Coach Enfield, who gave me first dibs on the chance. I felt like it was an opportunity I didn't want to pass on.
GD: What do you think it is about being an athlete that made you an appealing candidate for the internship?
JJ: I think it adds another dynamic, not necessarily specifically to C.B.R.E., but among the other interns there. Athletes are used to working in a collaborative environment, so it's easy for us to transition, even though we may not know about commercial real estate. Also, a lot of the other interns go to USC, so I think it's cool for them to see someone they cheer for to be working in the same environment as them. It's humbling for me.
GD: How did your experience speak to the concept of the Trojan Family?
<> JJ: It definitely did. Mark is a USC alum. I want to say almost 70% of the interns go to USC, or graduated from here.
GD: What is it about the opportunity that interested you?
JJ: The whole networking process, getting to be around a bunch of successful people. C.B.R.E. is one of the most successful corporations in the world. You have an opportunity to step outside your comfort zone, which was big for me. I wanted to see if I could learn about something I wasn't well versed in.
GD: And what did you learn?
JJ: I got to sit in on calls with my mentor and talk to some of his clients. I made a lot of phone calls and did a lot of research. It wasn't necessarily busy work, but more learning all the fundamentals of what it means to understand commercial real estate. That was pretty cool.
GD: What were some of the more unique experiences within the internship?
JJ: Every week my mentor would have me determine what, say, a 'cap rate' was. He taught me a lot of vocabulary. He would have me find out certain percentages. Even if he knew the answer, he would have me do it just to see if I understood the concept. That was pretty fun. A lot of my time was spent on the group presentations toward the end where we had a case competition among all the interns. I learned a lot about the retail market. I actually got to sit down and talk with Rick Caruso (USC, B.S. Business '80), which was pretty cool. I was lost when I got to The Grove, and Soma (Vainuku, USC FB) was actually the one who showed me to Caruso's office, so that was pretty funny. Just another testament to the Trojan Family.
GD: What was the most difficult thing about the internship?
JJ: Sitting at a computer desk for eight hours in a row. I'm used to getting up and moving all the time, so a lot of the time sitting at a desk for like eight hours a day was probably the worst part about it. But what are you gonna do? I will say this: at C.B.R.E. they have medicine balls you can sit on and a little StairMaster you can be on while you work on your computer, which was pretty sick.
GD: What did you learn at the internship that you can apply to this school year and to basketball?
JJ: One of the biggest things I learned--well, I'm still learning--is time management. That was actually one of my goals going into it, trying to manage my time a lot better than I had previously. It was definitely a huge thing that I learned from employees there, and from other interns. With [completing] the group project, it was just about managing my time, really setting up a calendar and sticking to it.
GD: If you were going to pick the three coolest things about your internship, what would they be?
JJ: Meeting with Caruso was definitely one of them. The final group presentation that we had was awesome. We had been preparing for it the entire internship, every day. It was really cool because whoever from the company that wanted to come was there. I want to say there were easily fifty people who watched my group and I present. That was probably number one. Caruso was number two. And number three? I really enjoyed my time with my mentor, interacting with him everyday.
GD: Tell me a little bit more about your group presentation. What did that entail?
JJ: Essentially there were about 30 interns and they divided us all up into six groups. We all got different topics on what C.B.R.E. wanted to address and learn a little bit more about. Our goal as the interns was to learn about it and present information on how C.B.R.E. could capitalize on what we were presenting to them. My group got retail strategies, so we did a lot of research on that. Like I said, we visited Rick Caruso and asked for his perspective on it. We concluded that retail is constantly evolving, and a good way for C.B.R.E. to capitalize on that is to stay ahead of the trend. Retail nowadays is shifting to a customer-experience based retailer, instead of traditional mall shops or a whole bunch of tenants in a huge development. Instead, the movement is towards curated, unique experience-based shops.
GD: You mentioned the connection between basketball and knowing how to collaborate and work as a team. Are there any other places you saw overlap?
JJ: Communication was huge this summer. You had to communicate with your fellow interns, your mentor, and had day-to-day interactions with people who work there already. They're really big on being professional: if you have an issue with someone, you should address it. If you have questions, don't be afraid to ask. They challenge you to communicate more, which was a positive from the internship that correlated with basketball because of my specific position. Being a point guard, I'm supposed to be the one who communicates most.
GD: Did you check in with Coach Enfield throughout the summer about the internship? What did he think about the whole thing?
JJ: He checked up on me every week or so to get an update on how it was going. He's successful outside of coaching, so he gets the whole corporate America aspect of it. He was more supportive than anything. Although when the internship conflicted with practice time, he wasn't too happy about that.
GD: Do you have recommendations for other athletes who are considering internships? Why do you think it's important for an athlete to have an internship experience?
JJ: For me, it was about stepping outside of my comfort zone, which I feel like everyone should do because you should always try and challenge yourself. I had never worked in a professional environment before, so that was really cool. I would totally promote at least attempting to work an internship because you get to meet people that you never thought you would come into contact with. You never know when your sport ends or can end, and it's always good to know those people and develop a relationship with them. I know that one day if I ever need something I can reach out to Mark or some of the other people I met there. It's all about the experience: you wanna do something where at the end of it you can say, "Wow I actually did that, that was cool." And you never know, you might like something that you didn't even know you would've.
