Last week I started my job at the Enterprise Project Management office at Brigham Young University. The story of how I got the job is pretty exciting, and I’m extremely happy with it. I was enrolled in the Project Management class last semester, and my professor, Ernie Nielson, just happens to also be the man in charge of the EPjM (acronym for the office). I’ve always been interested in Project Management, so I started asking a few questions and Ernie recommended that I apply for a job with him in his office.

After a whole slew of internship interviews and quite a bit of prayer, it became pretty clear that this was the job I should take for the summer. It’s my internship and I’ll be working here for approximately a calendar year before I graduate. I could have accepted an internship with USAA or FedEx, but considering the type of experience I will have here at the BYU office, it seemed like the best opportunity was for me to remain in town and to work with the Ernie and the others.

My first week and a half has been great! I am currently a Project Coordinator, apprenticing to become a Project Manager. I have not had a ton of work so far, but it’s getting better. My first week included a lot of reading and meeting with different people to develop a solid understanding of the different projects I am assigned to, but now I have several more meetings scheduled and I have more to do in regards to updating project details. In all honesty, this has been the easiest job transition that I’ve ever had! Ernie’s class prepared me beautifully for the role that I have; it has been surprising how quickly I am able to translate the things I understood from class to the real world of project management.

The biggest surprise to me has been that each project manager has to have a very solid understanding of different technologies and their implementation in order to manage a lot of these projects. It doesn’t seem like it’s terribly necessary to know the very specific details of software code, but there is a lot that you do need to understand in order to effectively take status updates and help in requirements definitions. The more meetings I attend, the more interesting it becomes to see how the project manager works with the project team on different phases of development and planning. Honestly, it’s a totally different experience than most people probably imagine it being.

JMR