Rachel Guan, WH ’25, New Orleans, LA
This summer, I had the opportunity to intern at Nuveen, a global asset manager and the investment arm of its parent company TIAA. At Nuveen, I was under the Real Estate division, where I had the chance to work with the newly formed Workplace, Retail & Mixed-Use (WREMIX) team that combined the former office and retail real estate sectors. Since I’m invested in pursuing real estate as a career, I’m very grateful that my time there has been worthwhile. I had many valuable learning experiences and the opportunity to create an impact on numerous projects alongside industry professionals, new mentors, and other interns. Furthermore, I got more exposure to different facets of real estate investment strategies and learned more about what drives the industry in times when the market is challenging.
One of my more impactful experiences would be working on a quasi-live deal for my final project. I was able to engage directly with some of Nuveen’s partners and think creatively about the dynamics of the deal, which was rewarding. Additionally, I was also involved in creating the first internal Nuveen Real Estate newsletter with a few other interns, which had a goal of transforming sector-specific knowledge into something more tangible across all teams to promote more free-flowing idea-sharing. For this newsletter, I had the chance to summarize leasing activity data and trends for the office and retail sectors that we were seeing from a Nuveen perspective.
All this hands-on experience that I had the privilege of being involved in this summer could not have been possible without the generosity of the Career Services Summer Funding grant. With this support, I was able to stay in New York City for the summer and work at the Nuveen headquarters. This was truly valuable as most of the best learning opportunities and best conversations I had were always in person. Whether that meant being at the office or on a property tour, just having the opportunity and ability to be physically present for my job was especially meaningful as it allowed me to cultivate better relationships with people on my team and with other interns across the different fields.
Lastly, I’m also thankful for my experience at Nuveen and for the support from Career Services because I got to narrow down what parts of real estate interest me most and explore the differences between working at a very large firm and working at a smaller one. Previously, I had the incredible opportunity to work for a small, family-owned real estate investment firm, so being at Nuveen this summer has given me the chance to compare my two experiences. As I continue to think about my future within the real estate industry, I will be reflecting back on this summer and all the insights I’ve gained. I cannot express enough appreciation for the time I got to have at Nuveen, and I will be using my time at Penn to explore more real estate-related opportunities.
This is part of a series of posts by recipients of the 2023 Career Services Summer Funding Grant. We’ve asked funding recipients to reflect on their summer experiences and talk about the industries in which they spent their summer. You can read the entire series here
