Internship experience gives a taste of a career in land and housing development

Christopher James (Senior) completed his summer internship with Lennar Homes, a home building and land development company. Lennar Homes is a national home builder known as one of the top home-building companies throughout the United States.

“Heading into the summer, I wasn’t sure what to expect considering I was going to work in an industry that I had not had any sort of experience with prior. But I went into the internship looking to gain insight and an experience that provided me with knowledge and skills that the classroom cannot teach, and this internship did just that for me.”

Christopher could work with various departments within the company, which gave him a better understanding of the company’s structure and how the industry works. He could work with departments that deal with housing construction, land acquisition, land development, sales, New Home Consultants, and even the Warranty team.

“During my time in the construction department, I was able to see and learn new things that I hadn’t been able to get to work with before. My day-to-day operation with construction was to manage the build schedule on a set of given homes. … to manage trades, keep communication between them, and coordinate the time between the tasks. I worked with many building inspectors throughout the build process to ensure that the home was being built to the specific code of the county that we were building in.

My time with land development was a great experience because I was able to see another side of the company that was entirely different then construction. My day to day operation while working with land development was to ensure that land was being cleared on a timely schedule, making sure the trades knew the specifics clearly such as, what elevation we needed at different points throughout the neighborhood, ensuring that counties came out to put in wet utilities and power needed so that we could build on top of the property, and to talk with counties and asphalt vendors about the streets being laid down. Overall, working with land development was insightful and was able to connect some practices I have learned throughout my planning degree to actual practice in the field.

The next department I worked with that left a lasting impact on me was working with the land acquisition department. Working with the land acquisition department, I was able to use my knowledge learned throughout the planning program more here than any other department. I looked at future proposed projects that the company was bidding on and to go and look at the specific counties land use plan to make sure it was consistent with what we wanted to build on that plot of land. Another great experience I had while working with this department was I able to attend a rezoning meeting with the land acquisition manager. Watching the whole rezoning process as a client was quite memorable as a planning student.” – Christopher James