And here my journey started with Land Sterling. I first started helping Mr. Yousef in some field research like finding ground information on companies, investors etc. I also helped with the Marketing dept in writing and designing proposals and also worked with the Accounts dept where I honestly made silly mistakes but the head there just guided and corrected me along the way, which was great. Weeks flew by and before I knew it, summer internship was over. The one major thing I gathered was about the great work experience and having experienced the way a professional international company working environment felt was amazing. Because of this, I told myself I will come back again in the next summer for more.

A year passed and summer came again. Excited about continuing on my internship with Land Sterling, I found out that new staff has joined and the company has grown. When I entered the office on my first day, the first guy I met was Mr. Robin Teh, the new department head for the KSA office. He immediately struck me as someone with that leadership personality which was aspiring to be around. This time, I started working mainly in the Research Dept. Mr Robin taught me the basics on how to gather information about the real estate market and how to assess, understand, and then come up with suitable conclusions and analysis on problems that was identified. Things were starting to be great when after the 2^nd day, I was unfortunately infected with Covid-19. I was so disappointed because I was just started learning new stuffs. For the first few days in home quarantine, I was recovering from the ill effects of the virus hence did not do much. When I felt my energies and health returning, I informed the office that I was able to help out as much as possible. I had a call then with Mr Robin and he agreed to let me help out. From then, we started doing online meeting calls, and let me tell you something, the guys in the company were so professional and efficient! It appeared like nothing had changed! We had daily calls, discussing and working on projects as they appear. The company even gave me the opportunity to do lead research onto a new project where I can safely do from my home whilst recovering from the virus! I was able to create solutions and help complete this project with my supervisor and team later on. After this was completed, Mr Robin then got me involved with a new research project which was for an international client with a much larger scope of work. Excited and slightly awed, I took up the new challenge. All this happened even as I returned back from my quarantine period, I was pleasantly delighted that Land Sterling had in my absence now hired two new female employees which gave a great balance to the company. I was initially a little shy as I’ve never worked with female colleagues (ever!) before but turned out they were just as normal and fun as the next colleague in the office. With that, my initial worries dissipated! With an expanded team now, we are now able to work on more diverse and interesting assignments ranging across the broad real estate spectrum (Sorry guys! Not able to tell more as these are confidential projects!)

As I’m writing this article, I’m actually sadly counting down the days when the internship ends. The overall journey had been short of astonishing for me and I am forever so grateful for being given an opportunity to be part of a special group. Now as I start planning to go back to school, I feel much more focused and having a clear objectives to what I must do to complete my studies…..and that’s all due to Land Sterling. Thank you Land Sterling!