I didn’t find an internship until about three weeks into the semester, which was very stressful. I had applied to at least seven places and interviewed with about three. I found a post on our college’s job network, Handshake, about a communications position with a business called 43North. I had heard of them before and once I read through the job description, I felt like I should apply and see what happens. A couple days later, I heard from their marketing director that they were interested in reading some writing samples from me before they brought me in for an interview. Luckily, I had taken a PR writing course at the school and all of the examples of writing that they wanted to see I had already written. I immediately sent an email with my documents and waited anxiously to hear back.
The director got back to me a few days later and said that he’d love for me to come in and interview with him. On the day of the interview, I saw a guy that had graduated a year earlier from Canisius! Turns out, he ended up sitting in my interview. What’s even funnier is that the marketing director was also a graduate of Canisius. I already felt like I had a step above my competition (Canisius grads love to look out for one another). The interview went great. I felt as though my true colors had shown and that as we were talking, it was clear that my strengths would be an asset at this company. The marketing director suggested that I also meet with the director of programming and events. A few days after that, I was sitting in a different space in the 43North incubator, talking logistics with the director of programming and events. Again, the interview went smoothly and I felt very proud that my previous accomplishments had led me to this point.
Things started to move quickly from that second interview. The following Friday I met with the two other interns that were hired, along with the director of programming and events, and the director of operations. That morning we decided, as a team, that we would meet each Friday morning and discuss what our plans would be for the week to follow. We would also discuss what we had accomplished the previous week and any ideas that we had for our next moves ahead. Immediately, all of us were communicating to the point where we were on the same page, in an open and positive way. After this first meeting, I felt like I had found the perfect internship to learn and grow and there were and are no doubts in my mind that the semester would continue in this fashion.
My first official day of my internship was February 8th (a little bit later than others in my class; however, I soon found out that time was no obstacle). I had already dove head first into work and was eager to take on more. My supervisors were very confident that we three interns were the perfect people for the job and had/have no issue with giving us work in terms of reaching our bigger goal.
We are “Education Outreach Interns.” We are working with the Buffalo Public schools, Buffalo Private schools and Buffalo Charter schools to implement a program with our company’s business competition winners and the students of these schools. Our goal is to have students engaged with our business founders and to have them get a better understanding of entrepreneurship and the ways that they can get involved, outside of school. This is the first year that this program has been implemented, which is an awesome experience for us because we truly are a part of helping make this program be the best that it can be (hopefully) for years to come.
I absolutely love how my internship has started thus far and I cannot wait for this semester to continue. I look forward to coming here each day that I’m scheduled to come in and time goes by so fast due to the hands-on tasks that I am given. I consider myself very lucky and am excited to see where I can grow from here.
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