Find internship opportunities Wednesday at Internship Match-Up

Randolph students have an awesome opportunity to find the perfect internship Wednesday.

Internship Match-Up will offer students the chance to meet representatives from local companies and organizations who provide internships for students who want hands-on experience with career options. Some companies will be ready to offer internships on the spot.

Internship Match-Up

When: Wednesday, Sept. 11, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Where: Phase 2, 4009 Murray Pl, Lynchburg, VA 24501
How to get there: Catch a shuttle that will leave from Main Hall every 30 minutes, or follow these directions
Why: To find amazing opportunities to test drive career options.

Find out more about what an internship will offer you by attending the "Spotlight on Internships" student panel at 7 p.m. Sept. 10 in Darden Two, or read Summer 2013 internship stories.

The event was organized by Randolph College, two other local colleges, and the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce. More than 50 employers from the region, including Genworth Financial, Lynchburg City Schools, and three Virginia political campaigns will have representatives there to discuss available internships.

Completing an internship during college is critical to a student’s preparation for life after graduation, said Maryam Brown ’02, internship coordinator. Internships are especially important for sophomores, who still have time to adjust their academic plans to incorporate what they learn about their prospective careers during an internship.

Also, internships open doors for the future. “Employers say that competitive job applicants have had one or two internships before graduating from College, and graduate school admissions boards are giving preference to applicants who have had the type of hands-on experience that comes through interning,” Brown said.

Lyric Opera Internship gives student experience in nonprofit management and fundraising

This summer, Melissa Halka ’14 seized an opportunity to work in an internationally renowned opera house and also explore the arts and cultural events in Chicago. It has been a fun journey that allowed her to explore her interest in public art and nonprofit management.

“I feel like I’ve learned a lot about myself and what I want to do,” Halka said.

Melissa Halka ’14 poses in front of a collection of shoes used in costumes at the Lyric Opera of
Chicago. Her internship has allowed her to learn many aspects of managing and raising money for
nonprofits and art organizations.

Halka was chosen for the Donald P. Baiocchi Lyric Opera Internship, which alumna Amanda Fox ’67 and her husband, Matthew Fox, sponsor each summer. The 10-week internship allows Randolph students to gain hands-on experience in arts management and nonprofit fundraising.

Halka has been working to support projects organized by the Lyric Opera’s chapters, organizations in the community that help raise money for the opera house. Those projects include Operathon, a radio broadcast that includes opera music and interviews with performers, and Fantasy of the Opera, a winter ball. Her daily tasks have ranged from marketing to public relations to special events and database management.

“The most valuable thing I’ve learned is time management and the importance of a lot of forethought when planning events,” said Halka. “I’ve done events with clubs at the college, but my boss is really good at keeping a calendar in her head. The events I’m working on now aren’t happening until March of next year. That forethought is something I want to apply in my own life as I plan events.”

She added that she has learned many ways to use software such as Microsoft Excel to track information that an arts organization needs to keep up with.

The internship was an incredible opportunity that Halka recommends to other students. “In this internship, you hit the ground running. You really get to know what it’s like to work in an opera company. You figure out how all the pieces fit together into an arts organization.”

“A huge plus is living in Chicago,” she added. “It’s an amazing place to live.”

During the internship, which continues until mid-August, Halka has lived close to Chicago’s Millennium Park, which hosts numerous arts-related events throughout the summer, including music concerts each Monday and movie screenings on Tuesdays. She enjoyed having the opportunity to experience that atmosphere, something she hopes to create in her future career. “I’m really interested in working with public art projects,” she said. “It’s good to have art accessible everywhere.”

Martha's Vineyard Museum internship confirms career choice

Lian Perez ’14 believes that she has discovered her future career through her Randolph College studies. Working as a public relations intern at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum this summer, she has explored that career path and learned more about museum promotion and marketing.

And it’s a perfect fit, she says.

“I’ve always wanted to do something related to art, but I didn’t really want to follow a curatorial route,” said Perez, who is majoring in art history and museum studies. “I love working with artifacts, but I’m more interested in working with people.”

On a trip to New York during her sophomore year, Perez decided to pursue a career in museum marketing and communications. She has been taking many communication studies classes, too, in preparation for that.

“Communicating effectively and putting out the best image of the museum helps the museum to grow,” she said. “If you are a nonprofit museum, you rely on your supporters. They want to see that their donations are being used wisely.”

Last year, she was excited to discover an internship opportunity at the museum of the well-known resort island Martha’s Vineyard. She worked with Maryam Brown ’02, Randolph’s internship coordinator, to perfect her application. An interview over the phone then went very smoothly. “The initial reaction was very positive and I could tell I would be able to work well with them,” she said.

After being selected for the internship, Perez applied for and received a Randolph Innovative Student Experience grant to help cover the costs of moving to Martha’s Vineyard for the summer for the internship.

Perez has been working on a variety of marketing and events tasks, everything from writing a press release to announce an upcoming program to crowd control during an event. This has taught her many aspects of planning and executing educational and fundraising events, lessons she looks forward to applying when she helps raise money and plan for Randolph’s senior dinner dance this year.

But most importantly, this internship has confirmed that she made a good decision to pursue this career. “I go into the internship every day exciting and smiling. Sometimes I don’t want to leave,” she said. “It makes me feel really confident that I’m going to be very happy with my career. A lot of people are unhappy with their employment, so it’s nice to know that I’ll be happy and really enjoy what I’m doing.”

Eighteen weddings in one day? Internship helps student experience wedding planning industry

A few weeks ago, Ashley Fratus ’14  threw 18 weddings in one day.

Fratus is interning at the Mandalay Bay Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada, which hosts more than 1,700 weddings each year. The fast-paced environment is giving her a crash course in the skills that she hoped to build this summer. “I was trying to find a place that would open a lot of doors for me in the future,” Fratus said. “It’s giving me hands-on experience in the exact field that I want to go into eventually.”

Fratus, a business major and psychology minor, hopes to become an event planner specializing in wedding events. “I’ve always been a really organized person, and I just loved to plan everything,” she said. “I also really like to interact with people. Event planning combines both of those things that I love to do. It plays right into the skills that I already have.”

This spring, she was looking for a summer opportunities in Las Vegas, her home city. She contacted Mandalay Bay’s chapel director, who offered her a 10-week position as an assistant to the chapel’s six coordinators.

The experience has allowed Fratus to learn about various wedding traditions, as well as detailed parts of making a wedding go smoothly, such as sending wedding party members down the aisle at exactly the right times. She also has seen the importance of good business management. “Since they have such a high volume, there is a lot of organization and planning that goes into it,” she said. “I’m learning how everything flows together.”

New York internship gives Randolph student advertising experience

More than 10 years ago, Bobby Crosby ’14 went to work with his uncle at a cable TV network in New York City. The fast-paced work environment and the bustling city fascinated him. “I came back and told my mom, I love the big city, and I want to work there someday,” he said.

Crosby is already fulfilling that dream with an advertising sales internship for A+E Networks, the parent company for cable stations such as A&E, Lifetime, and History. For the next several weeks, he will work closely with account executives and support their advertising efforts.

“I really want the hands-on experience that the internship will give me with sales and a better grasp on the entertainment industry,” said Crosby, a business major minoring in sociology and communication studies. “I also want to apply all the information that I’ve learned at Randolph.”

Crosby, one of the captain’s on Randolph’s men’s lacrosse team, has completed internships every summer of his college career. Two years ago, he worked for a commercial real estate agent. Last summer, he interned with a consulting firm in Paris, France. He believes those experiences helped him when he applied for the internship with A+E Networks.

In the first couple of weeks of the internship, Crosby spent most of his time conducting research on new products, programs, and other developments with prospective advertisers. He then shares that research with account executives, which helps them make the case when they meet with the prospective advertisers. “It gives the account executive some more fire power,” Crosby said.

He also has been assigned to create commercial ideas for a new television show that has not been released. When he has time away from the advertising research, he watches the show and studies the demographics of its target audience. This will help him develop ideas for advertisers.

During the 10-week internship, Crosby travels daily from his hometown of Bethel, Connecticut, to New York City—a two-hour train ride. Then the day is full of assignments, but it is worth having the busy summer, he said. “The internship is definitely keeping me busy, but I've already gained an immense amount of knowledge in just this short period of time.”

Student helps teens aim for college, aids homeless in finding shelter

Zach Scott ’14 leads a discussion group at Jefferson Forest High School.

Zach Scott ’14 passed out calendars to a group of high school students. “Today we’re going to talk about study skills,” he said. He asked them to write down their schedules for each day, noting how much time was spent studying, reading, watching TV, and participating in activities.

Then they pursued a discussion about how to make time for studying. One student pointed out that his grades had been better when he was running cross country and had to spend a lot of time at practice each week.

Scott affirmed that observation. “Your day was so packed that you had to structure it,” he said.

Scott was leading sessions like this in two Lynchburg-area high schools for Project Discovery, a program that aims to help students prepare for college by teaching them about setting goals, study skills, and financial aid. It is run by Lynchburg Community Action Group (Lyn-CAG), where Scott had an internship this fall.

Scott, who began his higher education at Central Virginia Community College, transferred to Randolph because of its strong sociology program and the campus culture. He knew he would be able to meet many different kinds of people while working closely with his professors. “It was really the diversity and the intimate environment of the college that brought me here,” he said.

His fall 2012 internship with Lyn-CAG had two components. In addition to teaching college preparation lessons to high school students, Scott helped find permanent housing for homeless people. His work helped increase his awareness of problems that he hopes to help solve.

“As a youth advocate, I realized that not every youth has a mentor to guide them through daily life.  That is a privilege, not an entitlement.  As a housing advocate, I realized that a home is a luxury item; not everyone has one,” Scott said.

Scott plans to pursue a master’s degree and become a social worker after he graduates from Randolph. Looking back on his internship, he said it provided valuable experience that will help in his career. “I was able to take sociological theory and apply it to sociological practice while working with people from various social and cultural backgrounds,” he said.