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About Me:

My name is Steph, and I am a senior Marketing major with a Communication Studies minor. Since this is my last year at Butler, my main goal is to enjoy every moment that I have left, while doing as much as humanly possible. I am a marketing analyst at the Butler Business Accelerator, a Speakers Lab tutor, and a Butler blogger (obviously). I also am an Alpha Phi, the President of the Butler University Student Foundation, a member of Alpha Kappa Psi (a professional business fraternity), and a member of the Butler American Marketing Association. In the small amount of free time that I do have, I love crafting, watching large amounts of television, and enjoying my favorite comfort foods, like sweet tea.

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Posts Tagged “internships”

The Post-Grad Life

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Stephanie

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not ready to graduate.  I have one class left in my undergraduate career, and I’m just waiting to become an emotional wreck when the underclassmen start leaving to go home for the summer, and then again when graduation is officially over.  I’ve loved college… a lot… but there is one thing that is pulling me through this emotional and kind of scary time in my life:  My future.  I’m staying in Indy…and I couldn’t be more excited.  Of course I would love to stay in college forever, but I’m sure that I would eventually get tired of it and be ready to leave.  And truthfully… real life is pretty awesome.  I’ve had a couple of glimpses into real life through my internships, and I really loved them all.  Going to breakfast, lunch, and dinner for meetings or just to visit…going on business trips… and having real life responsibility… it’s all really awesome actually… and deep down inside… I’m pumped.

Alpha Phi - my home from the last few years.

Something else that is going to be awesome about my post-grad life is having my own space for the first time.  I’ve lived in a sorority house for 3 years, and even though I’ve had some amazing experiences there, I’m excited to have my own room.  And to decorate it.  It will be different not being able to see my friends pretty much anytime I’d like, but that’s what brunch/lunch/dinner dates are for… and I can’t wait to have them… all the time.  I’ve come to the conclusion that I shall become a Cafe Patachou regular… because everything in life should be enjoyed along with an omelet, cinnamon toast, and amazing coffee.  Basically, I’ve decided that my post-grad life will be fabulous, and that I will survive even though everything I do won’t revolve around Butler anymore.

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Finding and Getting an Internship 101

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Stephanie

Yesterday I blogged about the internships that I have had over the years, so today I thought that I should follow it up with a post about ways to get internships.  Obviously, there is no special formula that will guarantee you your dream internship…but there are ways to be proactive about your search and your methods that can always help.  So…here are my suggestions:

  1. Update your resume. This is important to do first, because once you find internships to apply for, you will need to send in your resume.  So why not start off first with a perfect resume?  Come up with your own draft, then send it to people that you know and trust, like professors, friends, or family members so they can critique it.  Afterwards, be sure to update your resume anytime anything changes so it is ready to go!
  2. Make a list of the places where you would

    What my Excel document looked like during my internship search

    like to intern. This kind of a list can help guide your search process, so that you know where to look.  I would actually recommend making an Excel document with all of the information about the internship program, their timeline for selection, and anything else that might be helpful (like a direct link to the internship website).

  3. Use the resources available to you. If you are a student at Butler, the resources are basically unlimited.  There is the Internship and Career Services office, the COB‘s Career Development Center, and all faculty and staff are usually helpful in determining what internships would be a good fit for students in different areas.
  4. Most importantly – be proactive! Truthfully, nothing will help you land a great internship more than if you take the entire situation seriously, and work at it yourself.  The ICS office, friends, and professors can help you so much, but at some point you really need to take the process into your own hands and just make it happen!

After you find internships that you want to apply for, there is always the interviewing process, which brings along its own challenges.  So, last summer during my time at Vera Bradley, I wrote a blog about this part of the process.  If you are interested, check it out here!

 

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My Internship Timeline

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Stephanie

Over the last few years, I’ve done a lot of internships.  Four to be exact…and they all have offered me something a bit different.  They have all been in different locations, they have all entailed different responsibilities, and they have all been awesome for different reasons.  So, I thought I would use this blog to talk a bit about each internship that I have had, and why it was/is great.

Pike County HTC

I worked with HTC (HomeTown Competitiveness) the summer before my Junior year.  PCHTC is a group that had formed in my community the year before, and their goal was to foster economic development and growth in the community.  So, I was the Marketing Intern, and I spent my summer advertising for the group and local businesses, planning events, and doing any little things that would be helpful for HTC.  It was a great internship because I was able to give back to my community, live at home, and it helped me get my feet wet in the business world.

Vera Bradley

Last summer (summer before Senior year), I worked for Vera Bradley in Fort Wayne, IN.  I worked with Human Resources as the Recruiting Intern, and I spent my summer helping out with the recruiting process in basically every way and developing a social media plan for recruiting.  This was a great opportunity for me because not only did it force me to live on my own in a new city for the first time, but I also learned an outrageous amount about business and recruiting.  Their formal internship program was absolutely wonderful, because I was able to learn about every single area of the company, while developing relationships with the other interns at Vera.

The store opening I attended while working with Vera Bradley…

Slingshot SEO

I worked at Slingshot during the first semester of my Senior year, and it turned out to be a really cool opportunity for me.  Not only was it the first time I got to work with an actual Marketing department, but during the semester I was able to see how companies handle organizational change.  Slingshot is a very young company (much different from Vera Bradley, an older  company) so things were constantly changing throughout the semester.  This was a great experience for me, because after graduation I will be working with a very similar company, so I now have at least a partial idea of what I should be expecting when I start my full-time job in June.  Also, working at Slingshot forced me to be serious about time management since I took 12 hours of class, worked close to 30 hours per week between all of my jobs, while holding 4 leadership positions in my clubs and organizations. 

Butler Business Accelerator

This is my current internship…and I’m totally loving it.  The BBA is an on-campus consulting firm located in the College of Business at Butler, which means that it is most definitely the most convenient of all of my jobs.  I work with some great people, all Butler students, some of which I knew beforehand and some of which I didn’t, and we just have a great time.  I am the Internal Marketing Intern, so it is my job to market the BBA, rather than work with any of our clients.  It’s fun, outrageously convenient, and I feel like it is allowing me to pull together all of my internships and everything I’ve learned in classes, so it is kind of like my Capstone Internship.  So fitting.

Next I’m going to blog about how to get internships…so check back tomorrow for an inside look into how I got each of these internships…and my tips for looking for them!

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When did I learn all of this??? Part II

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Stephanie

Yesterday, I blogged a bit about my realization that I had a few weeks ago.  If you haven’t read it yet…check it out here.  Today I am writing Part II, which is basically about some of the requirements and classes that I once thought were unnecessary/confusing…but now I completely understand and appreciate.

Internships

In Butler’s College of Business, we are all required to have 2 internships for credit.  This basically means that they need to approve of the internship (or make sure that it is worth our while) and that we need to work for at least 300 hours during the semester.  The two internship requirement was fine with me (I’ve had four now), but the 300 hour situation is what I struggled with.  I had basically zero free time last semester, and a few times I really wasn’t sure if I was going to make it to the 300 mark or not.  But now, looking back, I realize that if I hadn’t been forced to work so much…I would have become a slacker…and maybe only got 200 hours in.  And then, if I only worked there that much…I KNOW that I wouldn’t have learned as much as I did if I had been there for 100 hours less.  Might not have seemed that way at the time…but now I’m sure.

Freshman Business Experience/Real Business Experience

In both of these classes, groups create a business concept and business plan, and either pitch the idea or actually carry the business concept out.  I was completely overwhelmed with these classes when I took them at the beginning of my freshman and sophomore years…but now I’m so glad that I had them when I did.  They were the perfect way to completely immerse myself in business, and to attempt to understand how businesses run from the beginning to the end.

A Blast from the Past...My FBE Group and I....

Everything else…

A few weeks ago at my internship (I work at the Butler Business Accelerator), we were having a discussion with one of the full time staff members about marketing.  She was asking us questions about our understanding of marketing strategy, and how different businesses market themselves in different ways, and I seriously just loved it.  For the first time, everything that I have learned over the last few years in every class, experience, and internship was coming together to make sense of something that could be so foreign to us.  I’m just glad that this all happened before I graduated…because now I can sit back and relax…and enjoy knowing that I have learned some really awesome stuff over the last four years.  So thanks Butler, and thanks College of Business…couldn’t have done it without you. 

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When did I learn all of this??? Part I

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Stephanie

As college students, we believe that it is our duty to comment on how helpful (or useless) each of our classes is.  We cope with the stress of completing assignments, projects, and writing papers by sharing our every thought with anyone within earshot, anyone who is our friend on Facebook, and anyone who follows us on twitter.  In my four years at Butler, I have done this many times (complain, that is) …but I think that I finally see the purpose of everything (or most things) that I have had to do while in college.

The reason why our professors give us assignments and projects, and why we have specific requirements…is because they want us to learn.  Imagine that…we come to college…and they want to teach us things.  The kicker is though, if you aren’t in classes where you feel like you are learning a specific skill, or if you don’t like your internship, etc., at that time you feel like you aren’t really taking anything away from that experience.  Yeah, you might not ever truly see or understand how things connect…but somehow…in a crazy, strange way…all of our educational experiences build on each other to prepare us for everything we will do when we leave.

I think I finally came to this realization a few weeks ago, when I was thinking (and blogging) about how much I have changed over the last 4 years.  I started to see that there are so many skills/thought processes that are second nature to me now, but I couldn’t nail down exactly when and where I learned them.  Since then, I have been kind of just reflecting on everything that I’ve done in the last few years…and what I have really gained from everything.  Not only did this make me feel outrageously wise (I’m available for life/academic/career counseling if anyone is interested), but it also made me glad that I stuck with my marketing major through my senior year.  No offense to the other colleges at Butler, but I really like the College of Business…for quite a few reasons.  Since I could go on about this for what seems like forever, I am going to continue this tomorrow with “When did I learn all of this???  Part II”….so come back to check it out!

Everyone I interned with at Vera Bradley last summer – just as a teaser for the next blog

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The Beginning of the End…of my Butler Career.

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Stephanie

Last semester, I worked so much that I barely had time to study and I hardly even felt like a student.  I was this strange “phantom senior” who was only in my room between 11 p.m. and 7:30 a.m., and who lived out of my plethora of Vera Bradley bags.  Some people would love this kind of schedule…but I couldn’t stand it.  It was like I was living double lives, as a partial “real person” who worked 25+ hours a week, drank coffee, and who went to meetings to talk about things that involved budgets more than $500….and as a partial student who still took 12 credit hours, was overly involved, and lived in a sorority house.  It was a nice little introduction to my future….but I have got to say…I am so glad to be a student again.  I am now in class more than I’m at work, and I love it.  Granted, it is just the second week of school, and I actually have time to study/prepare for each class, but I think that my schedule this semester is going to allow for me to love every minute of my last few months here at Butler…and I couldn’t be happier.

So, in my last semester at Butler, I tried to make sure that I would be making the most of everything… classes, work experience, and campus life.  I’m taking 15 credit hours (which is not a ton, but not an easy load either), all of which I am really excited about.  I get to take my two business capstone courses (one for management and one for marketing), consumer behavior, international marketing, and a leadership & decision-making course for my minor (communication studies).  As far as work goes, I am still blogging, working in Speakers Lab, and I am doing my 4th internship at the Butler Business Accelerator (an on-campus consulting firm).  Even though I am still working 3 jobs, I’m working about half as much as I did last semester, which is absolutely BEAUTIFUL.  Since I am a second semester senior, I am also starting to “phase out” of most of my organizations.  I recently transitioned the new people that are taking over 3 of my past leadership positions, so I am outrageously excited to be a participant in campus activities for the first time in awhile…rather than being in charge.  We will see what I say in about a month, when school is really moving….but for now…I finally am loving senior year.  :)

Some Alpha Phi seniors on Bid Day...

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Decisions… Decisions…

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Stephanie

If you are a student anywhere from a senior in high school to a senior in college….right now is probably decision time for you.  Whether you are deciding where you want to go to college, or where you are spending your summer, or what you are going to do now that you aren’t in college anymore, making decisions is hard….really hard.  I speak from experience, because I had exactly one day to make a HUGE decision for this point in my life last week.  So, since thinking about decision making is fresh in my mind, here is some advice for how to make very thorough decisions that you can be proud of…

  • Do your homework. Educate yourself on all of the options, and understand what you would be getting yourself into in each area.  This way, you know what each option entails.
  • Make a pro-con list. Since you just laid out everything about all of the options, now you can gauge what is a pro and what is a con, and possibly even rank them in importance.  You can do this by giving each a score from 1-10 on which is more important, or you can just rank them.
  • Talk to people that you know and whose opinions you respect. This is something that I think is the most helpful, because sometimes others see opportunities that you would never consider.  They can also encourage you to make a choice that will help you grow, especially when you are afraid of making a decision like that.  I love getting the opinion of others, and trust me, it can be VERY helpful.
  • Think about the future. Which option will help you get to where you want to go with your life, or at least closer?  This can sometimes be hard to see, but it is very useful, and something you should keep in mind!
  • Go with your gut. Usually what happens is that you have a gut feeling, then you try to talk yourself out of it.  After this individuals tend to sway back to their gut feeling, or maybe they talk themselves out of the option so effectively that they they end up picking it.
  • Once you make your decision, be proud of it! If you make your decision and then think, I wish I would have gone with the other option…you will drive yourself crazy.  So do yourself a favor, and stick with what you decided, because it is probably what is right for you!

That is all of the tips that I have for right now….and even though I said that I had a big decision to make….I am not sharing the decision until a later date, so check back for an update on my life!

If you are deciding about what school to go to....it never hurts to pick a school that looks like this...

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