Internship Spotlight: Luke Santos & Nicolette Mascari Realty Team | Compass

During the 2022 Summer Intersession, rising senior Luke Santos completed an internship with alum Nicolette Mascari at Nicolette Mascari Realty Team. Read on to learn about his experience as a Marketing & Communications Specialist!

If you’re interested in doing your own internship but don’t know where to start, make an appointment with your Career Advisor by going to Handshake.

Alumni Nicolette Mascari sought out RWU talent, looking for a student with a background in marketing and communications to assist her real estate team to prospect, target and market to new customers. Compass, Inc. is an American licensed real estate broker that utilizes the Internet as a marketing medium with the use of real estate technology. Compass employs more than 20,000 agents who earn a percentage of the selling price .  Compass specializes in high-margin, luxury homes in upscale markets. Founded in 2012, the company is headquartered in New York City. The company provides software to real estate agents. Compass is the first company to have built a proprietary mobile app for real estate agents. Read on about her latest intern Luke’s experience. To learn more about Nicolette and her firm visit The Roger Connection today!

What was your internship? This summer, my internship was in real estate. I worked alongside an RWU alumni, Nicolette Mascari. Nicolette graduated from Roger Williams in 2007 with a degree in Marketing and Education. Nicolette is now a real estate agent for the growing online platform known as Compass. I was able to connect with Nicolette through our reliable resource that the career center offers known as the “Roger Connection.” Through this, I was able to reach out to alumni of the university who are interested in connecting with current students. From there Nicolette was the first one to connect with me and be interested in having an intern for the summer of 2022. After a few zoom meetings and lunch, I was Nicolette’s first ever intern, basically her assistant as a real estate agent.

Why were you initially interested in this internship? I was not only interested in this internship because Nicolette was the first person to get back to connect with me, but also because she has never had an intern work alongside her before. I saw this as a great learning experience for the both of us and another great opportunity to make another reliable connection.

How did you find your internship? I was able to find this internship through the resource known as the Roger Connection. Thanks to my career advisor in the career center, he was able to walk me through the process of the internship requirements for my major and help me locate such a great opportunity I was able to take place in.

What did you do as part of your internship? I was Nicolette’s second set of hands. I was able to prospect and target across 4 towns including (Wayland, Lincoln, Sudbury, & Natick MA), learn the MLS system, attended broker openings, work on my Microsoft Excel skills, and even did some mailing for her. Through all of these small tasks and weekly meetings on Tuesdays, I was able to reach my requirement of 135 hours for my major.

Has this internship helped you work towards your future career goals? If so, how? Yes, I believe this internship helps me work toward my future career goals because I learned so much from Nicolette during the internship. She always reiterated how important it is to stay on top of things and always be looking for lead’s in this field every single second of every day. So when she didn’t have the time to do this, that is when I was non-stop prospecting and targeting new leads and clients for her. She always taught me to work hard to play hard as well. Learning from Nicolette during this internship helped me continue to be motivated for my own career in the future. She always told me how she believes in me and can see success, so to hear that made me continue to want to work even harder towards those future career goals of mine.

What was your biggest lesson/takeaway from the internship? My biggest lesson during this internship was that in the real estate field hours and hours of work can still make you $0. It is what truly makes the real estate industry so hard, but yet how rewarding it really can be when the work gets put in and you start gaining clientele.

What advice would you give to someone interested in a similar internship opportunity? My advice to someone interested in any internship opportunity like myself is that even if you notice an opportunity that is new, or even slightly different from your major, but you still believe it will be useful to your life and education – go for it. Like myself, I am a communications major but I worked alongside a real estate agent for my internship. Trying new things and making new connections is the best advice I can give to anyone stuck looking for an internship because it is the most useful thing to do in your own life.

By Mary Santoro
Mary Santoro Director of Career Services