Practicum Journal

Monday, June 15
Today was the first day of in the Schwab Intern Academy. In the morning, we were greeted by
our hiring managers and were processed through security. We then were brought into a training
room where breakfast was catered and we had the opportunity to meet other managers, academy
facilitators and other interns. The remainder of the day was spent learning about the academy
agenda and learning how to introduce us to other Schwabbies. Even in the small interactions
with tenured Schwab employees, it became evident that everyone is truly treated equally and
with respect. I look forward to hearing more about the Schwab culture tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 16
Today will be another day full of academy activities. Our manager briefed us this morning to let
us know that Communication Consulting duties will begin tomorrow. In any case, today was fill
with so much enrichment. The first half of the day was facilitated by a Human Resources
presenter who informed us of Schwabs history dating back to the 1980s, its challenger
culture and the firms newest focus on generational study.
Through the presentation of Schwabs history, I learned about Charles Schwabs initiative to
change Wall Street. He entered the industry as a low-cost brokerage service with the idea that
brokers should be paid a salary not a commission. This vision was with the clients well being in
mind and this still holds true today. This approach to doing the right thing for clients is just a
small testament of how Schwab employees are treated. The next portion of the presentation
mainly went over Schwab benefits. Besides for discounted financial services and an amazing
benefits package, Schwab also awards a month long sabbatical for employees every five years. In
fact, instead of asking tenured employees how many years theyve been here, you ask how many
sabbaticals theyve had. The last presentation was about Schwabs focus on generational studies.
Schwab has invested time and money into studying generational factors. To be clear, they want
to understand what makes a Baby Boomer different from a Millennial. They believe this is
fundamental to understanding their clients, but most importantly how we all work and behave
around each other in the corporate entity. The presentation outlines each generations descriptors
with the goal of making us more aware of how to interact with one another.
The day concluded with something very spectacular. We had the unique opportunity to
teleconference with Schwabs CEO and President, Walt Bettinger. He told us of his career path
including his successes and challenges. He then spent a lot of time giving us suggestions about
our academic career and futures. He concluded with a brief Q&A.
Wednesday, June 17
Today was the first day where I got to spend some time with my department, the Communication
Consulting team. This summer I will be sharing my time with another Communication
Consulting intern, Jason. Jason and Is first event with the department was shadowing Amy, a
Communication Consultant (CC). CCs are responsible for developing a communication strategy

with client. In Retirement Plan Services, our clients are Plan Sponsors, which are corporations
that provide a 401(k) plan to their employees. We spoke with Amy about strategy, which
involves getting to know the clients specific needs and culture and then developing a plan. After
a plan is developed, CCs begin working with other business partners within Communication
Consulting to deliver communication literature and workshops.
Next, we spent some time with Cassie, a Communication Manager (CM) who is responsible for
writing custom communications for clients who have unique needs and who are not fit for cobranded or Schwab branded templates.
Lastly, we met again with all the interns for an academy event where we had an overview of the
401(k) industry and how Schwab fits into this field.
Thursday, June 18
This morning, we sat down and began training with Theresa, who manages the Communication
Specialist (CS) team. This team is tasked with ordering communication pieces and materials and
developing workshops for presenters who go on site to clients. After this training, we
accompanied Theresa to our first weekly meeting with the rest of team where they discuss
current projects, challenges and better business practices.
After learning more about the CS role, we shadowed Stacy; another CM. Stacy has a unique
writing background because she came from the journalism field. So she spoke with us about the
general duties of CMs, as well as her unique approach to writing.
Friday, June 19
In the morning, we shadowed Liz a CM who specializes in Conversion. Conversion happens
when a client adopts a new plan or it occurs when we have a new client altogether. This team
approaches writing in a different way than traditional CMs. They have to be able to write with
the utmost clarity since changing anyones retirement plans can be quite challenging.
The remainder of the day was truly special. All of the interns were brought together and taken
out to our local Boys and Girls Club of America chapter. Once there, we participated in an event
that Schwab sponsors called the Reality Store, where children choose an occupation then go
from table to table collecting real life events. These events include collecting insurance, buying
groceries, housing, medical expenses, and unexpected life events such as pregnancy. From here,
the children must make sound decisions to financially stable.
Monday, June 22
Today, we began our assignments from the CS team, which involved fulfilling orders for several
companies.
All the interns met in the afternoon for a volunteer debriefing. We were all so surprised by how
some of the children made very responsible decisions while others took some major risks.

Later in the afternoon, we experienced our first CM meeting. Similar to the CS meeting, the team
discusses current projects, issues and better business practices.
Tuesday, June 23
This morning I met with Jen Rabel, a CM who is also the Team Manager. She has acted as my
supervisor for this internship experience. Today makes our first one on one session. At these
weekly sessions, we will discuss the prior week and any questions or concerns. For this session, I
was also given information on my case studies, which will be shared with Jason. These case
studies are fake company profiles where we apply a communication strategy and present. This
presentation is due on Wednesday, August 12.
In the afternoon, I got the unique opportunity to join a virtual presentation through the clients
eyes and learn about my investment style. Brian, the presenter, was kind enough to speak with
afterwards about my time at Kent and what I had learned at Schwab. This is how most, if not all,
of my interactions go at Schwab. Everyone, sincerely, wants to be your advocate and truly cares
that you succeed.
The day concluded with more CS training on some department-specific software, and then some
more shadowing in a department called Participant Services. Participant Services is Schwabs
state of the art call center. There is no foreign outsourcing and the client relations are superb.
This is not only my opinion after shadowing but also evident by their ratings.
Wednesday, June 24
My day started again with CS training by Theresa. Many of these trainings are going through the
different order systems and learning to accessing different folders on our public drives.
Second, all of the interns in the academy were brought together on a nationwide conference call
to discuss our Strengths. Earlier in the internship, we were all asked to complete the Gallup
Strengths assessment. My top five strengths include Restorative, Learner, Achiever, Context and
Harmony. From what I could see of the interns, my strength interactions are quite unique. I plan
on doing more training with these innate strengths with a Strengths coach sometime this summer.
The goal of Strengths is for leaders to approach their team with a strengths approach instead of
weaknesses. This assessment also gives insight into what projects would be well suited for what
person.
Thursday, June 25
This morning was met with more shadowing in the Participant Services call center and there will
be two more shadowing sessions later in the day. It is becoming evident how crucial this team is.
The developers clearly saw reason to spend so much time here. They want us to understand the
sorts of questions that participants have about their 401(k) plan and future. Unfortunately, these
calls arent always good. Some people become incredibly distraught and hopeless about their
future. These people are handled with the utmost dignity and respect.

Later in the morning, we were participating in more CS training. The rest of the afternoon was
filled with more Participant Services shadowing. Lastly, I had the unique opportunity to sit with
someone outside of my department. Rebecca is a part of the internal communication group who
develops all communications between business partners.
Friday, June 26
Today was a very light day. We started with some additional CS training and then received some
fulfillment assignments throughout the day.
Monday, June 29
This morning was again filled with regular CS fulfillment and workshop building. In the
afternoon, we had presentation on the Retirement Plan Services Administration. This
presentation brought the unique opportunity to meet Steve Anderson, the Executive Vice
President of Retirement Plan Services and Catherine Golladay, the head of Operations within
Retirement Plan Services. Both of these individuals have been so remarkably successful in their
careers and possess amazing leadership. Having each just a couple minutes with Anderson was
wonderful. He spoke about his time in college up until the day he accepted an officer position at
Schwab. Catherine introduced herself in the same fashion but also spoke about her most recent
promotion where her leadership expanded into 300 more people beneath her. We only had a
short time with her but my admiration grew as I came across just how many roles she has played
in this businesss success. It is especially remarkable because women in the financial industry are
still a growing opportunity. This showcases another initiative by Schwab, the Womens
Interactive Network System (WINS). WINS is just one of the examples of how Schwab truly
empowers employees, in this case women, to succeed in their career.
I intend to meet with Catherine for an informational interview later this summer.
We also had a conference call with Erin, a CM, where she assigned us our first mock writing
assignment. The call-to-action of this piece was participation, meaning that we want participants
to contribute to their 401(k) and take advantage of their company match (if they have that
option).
Tuesday, June 30
Today was my second time having a one-on-one with my manager. At this meeting, we went
over the case studies again and discussed informational interview opportunities. At this time, I
have an appointment with Rebecca Forrer, who works in internal communications and Catherine
Golladay who is the head of Operations. My manager was quite please that I had taken the
initiative to set these meeting up on my own without her intervention.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with one of our last CS training sessions. After today, we are
now able to do quite a large part of the CS role.
Wednesday, July 12, 2015

Started the morning off working on a small project with my manager. This project is actually
quite unique because I get to assist in the creation from start to finish. First, I get to help with
editing the writing, then submitting to Compliance and last, it will be finished by our Creative
(C2) team.
For lunch, we were accompanied by the recruiter who hired us, as well a Human Resources
executive. They took this time to welcome us again to Schwab but to also welcome any feedback
we had about the company.
Lastly, the intern academy held an event called Financial Fitness, where we got our first taste of
financial training. To my surprise, I actually quite enjoyed this session. The Financial Consultant
who spoke with us really understood our frustrations and concerns about the future and gave us
tools to improve the outcome. He also asked many questions about our opinions and insights as a
group of Millennials.
Thursday, July 2
This morning, we had our weekly CS meeting. Again, just going over current projects, issues and
better business practices. We also had a conference call with Erin, a CM, where we reviewed our
assignments that were given to us earlier in the week. Erin was so impressed by Jason and Is
work. She even made notes about some phrases I used that would probably pass through
compliance.
I ended the day with a conference call with four other interns across the country. This summer
we will have an investment challenge on a simulated stock site called MarketWatch. This
meeting, my teammates and I went over strategies and learning tools for those less educated in
stocks.
Friday, July 3
Off**
Monday, July 6
This morning I worked with manager on another step of the project I was working on with her.
At this step we are still making edits. I also had my first meeting with Laura, my Intern Mentor.
She met for an hour and spoke about my experience thus far and she assigned some take aways.
The take aways were to start updating resume, an elevator pitch and to have lunch with someone
new.
In the afternoon, we met with Kirsten, a CM, where we were assigned another writing project,
this time where the call to action was using advice provided by our call center. I also had another
meeting with my Investment Challenge Team on some changes of strategy we wanted to take.
Lastly, we had our bi-weekly CM meeting.

Tuesday, July 7
My only scheduled event for the day was my one-on-one with my manager. We discussed my
informational interview dates and the case studies again.
Other than that, I worked on putting together a schedule of questions for people I wanted to
interview. Additionally, I had order fulfillments to complete from different CSs.
Wednesday, July 8
This morning, we had additional training from Liz, the CM who focuses on conversions. She
taught us how to edit PDFs and save them to the public drive for use. I also worked on the
submitting my manager and Is project through Compliance. Lastly this morning, we had our
weekly CS meeting.
In the afternoon, we had an academy event called Presenting with Impact. The event was
facilitated by a professional presenter for Schwab. He essentially just gave us tip on how to
speak effectively and keep your audience engaged. When he found out that I was communication
major, he used me for quite a few examples!
Thursday, July 9
Again, another light day. Besides brainstorming on the case studies. We went and shadowed in
the Creative studio. This has been one of my most favorite experiences yet. This room was
different than any room I had seen in the building before. It was filled with natural light and the
room was generally designed with open concept in mind. The designers willingly took us
through their entire creative process and we got to see past, present and future project that they
work on. I was most amazed with how quick their turn around is.
Friday, July 10
This morning we got to do a really neat task for the CSs. Through our training, we are now able
to help with the scheduling of our presenters by sending out invites to all that are involved. It
sounds easy enough but is actually quite complex. If one person is left off the list, it can turn into
a real mess.
Then, this afternoon we had our presentation with Kirsten on our Advice pieces. I had so much
fun with this assignment and actually learned a lot about the writing role. I decided to take on a
creative role as well and created a visual to accompany the written piece. Kirsten had no issues
from a compliance standpoint and was really interested into where we got inspiration. These
pieces will all be found in my portfolio.