One graduate. Two degrees. Three internships. When I moved my tassel to the left side of my cap, I felt an instant rush of panic. Were these the only bullet points I had for the resume that was supposed to carry me successfully toward my future? Was it enough? Despite the achievements I felt I conquered through college, I had no idea where I was supposed to go from here.
Ever since I began college I knew it would be hard to land a job post graduation. I have always believed in studying your passion, and writing had always been that for me. I felt it was only right that I continued studying what I loved in college, and that’s exactly what I did as a double major in Creative Writing and Information Science. The question, “What can you do with those?”, was one I got familiar answering. With everyone’s doubts, it quickly became a question I asked myself in the months leading to my graduation date.
Getting Started
Luckily, preparation is something I have always been, well, prepared for. I had known how difficult it would be to get a job after graduation, and that internship experience throughout college was a necessity. The path would be tricky, so I dipped my toes in every industry I could. During my college years, I interned for an entertainment company, a custom retail business, and a Tucson advertising agency.
Understanding My Career Path
These internships helped me decide exactly what I wanted to do with my career: social media advertising. It is the perfect blend of everything I studied, a mix between creative thinking, storytelling, and digital communication. While picking up social media skills with each experience, (AND LOVING IT), I worked to make relationships with my employers and the people who piqued my interest in advertising.
Finding the Right Place
Thankfully my pattern of finding internships during all seasons of the year led me to my first role after college. Through the connections I made with past employers, I was introduced to a company that checked all of my career boxes. Yes the role I chose is here, at OH Partners. And you guessed it…I’m an intern!
My day-to-day life at OH has given me real life experience in an advertising agency. I have been given tasks that allow me to work with real clients and real projects. I feel truly challenged in this position and that was my goal coming into the internship.
Through this experience I was given the opportunity to work with 10 other interns to put together a capstone project. Having an intern from each department made our group feel like a mini agency! During the program, we were tasked with pitching a rebranded internship program to the entire company, partners included. I was fortunate enough to represent our team by being one of the key speakers. The stress of studying the material and practicing my public speaking came through in ways I could have never imagined. I was given the opportunity to face our CEO, creative directors, and founders with our team’s ideas and answer any remaining questions from the audience. What intern has a chance to do that? This responsibility gave me something of value to bring to my resume and confirmed my desires to continue to grow with OH Partners.
OH The Places I’ll Go!
Being an intern has been the best transition out of college for me. It has given me time to mourn the loss of my college town, while also giving me the reassurance that life after college can be just as amazing. OH Partners has confirmed my desire to work in the advertising world, a thought that I may have never solidified if I jumped head first into a full-time position. OH has given me real-world experience from content creation, to social media strategy, to writing my very own blog posts, (like this one!). These tasks have given me a great deal of responsibility, but with guidance, so that I have the opportunity to grow and learn from the experts. Because of this, I feel more ready for the real world than I ever have before.
