Women in Sports Tech–founded in 2017–is a nonprofit aimed at increasing the representation of women and nonbinary individuals in the sports tech industry through connecting with young professionals and companies looking to diversify their talent pool. I first became aware of WiST through its Discover Sports Tech series, where I learned about the variety of roles in the industry. While “sports tech” may sound like it focuses on roles in AI, computer science, and wearable technology, this field encompasses sports science, marketing, human resources, product, engineering, and more!
As a marketing researcher intern for Gia Kuan Consulting, I help research brands that the agency could work with and report back to the founder and principal, Gia Kuan Consulting. Work starts around 10:00AM and ends at 6:00PM on a normal day for a full time worker. Since I am doing research remotely, my schedule is more flexible. Everyday, I receive the proposal emails from companies forward to me through email by Gia Kuan. I then create a ‘new business brief’ of what the company does and upload any assets they attach to the company Dropbox. Sometimes we get proposals from really enticing companies and those are especially interesting and fun to do. However, most of the time the companies are still too small and new to judge any future potential.
Every Friday I have a meeting with Gia discussing the new businesses and which ones are promising. I also schedule times for Gia to meet with clients. Even though we don’t accept most proposals, we still take calls to be formal and show good will. Aside from marketing research, I will also help send out press blasts for our clients about new products or collaboration opportunities. I also maintain an over 1,000 press contact document and update new emails daily. This is important because if we send out a press blast email to over 100 contacts and the emails are incorrect, we are losing out on potential press. I also help research press narratives some clients could take. For example, one of our new clients is ESSX, a physical fashion boutique store that is soon to open in Chinatown, Manhattan. As part of my research, I did a deep dive on past press pieces about store openings in New York city. I researched large chains like Macy’s but also smaller independent stores and compared and contrast the press sentiment. Furthermore, I also noted the press contact names to reach out to them on behalf of ESSX.
It is such a privilege to work with such an amazing team and that factor is a large reason for why I decided to continue working at Gia Kuan Consulting. The team, consisting of 6 full-time staff, 2 freelancers, and myself are all hard working and passionate about the intersection of art and fashion. They are intelligent and do amazing work. We have great conversations with each other and help each other out. In contrast to traditional work environments that DePaul has prepared me for, I truly find myself blessed to work for such a lovely and positive team doing work that I genuinely feel passionate about.
After COVID-19, the company has experienced positive growth and has gotten a lot of press attention within the public relations industry about how innovative the agency is. My boss is also an incredible and hard working woman and is the driving force in the team. She treats everyone with dignity and respect despite her busy schedule and genuinely cares for people.
On a technical basis, I have understood and been immersed in the world of public relations and communications. I am getting more familiar with well known writers for various publications and slowly developing professional relationships with them. I also know how to send press blasts, know how to read a press report, I can assemble a post-release for an event, and so much more. I really feel the skills I have learned in this internship have built strong hard skills that I can transfer to other industries. Furthermore, the ever-changing nature of the arts and fashion makes me nimble and adaptable to many situations helping me become more confident in my thinking and myself in the professional world.
Although my experience at Lynn Hazan & Associates (LH&A) was for 3 and half months, I had countless things that I have learned at LH&A as a student intern. I would like to introduce what I achieved and learned through this valuable experience.
Presentation with Emeritus: 4 Generations at Work
With the aging population, the market presents both opportunities and challenges. I had the privilege of being involved in a project, focused on creating a presentation on this topic. This included aspects such as the aging population, the inter-generational workforce, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Collaborating with the president of LH&A on this project was a valuable experience, and I received excellent feedback directly from her. One of the key lessons I learned from this project was the importance of organizing information effectively. In order for a presentation to be clear and impactful, it is crucial to structure thoughts and organize information in a coherent manner. Working alongside the president allowed me to gain valuable insights into this aspect of presentation development. Finally, we presented on June 29th with the help of Emeritus (online education platform).
Networking Events at DePaul
At LH&A, we continually seek candidates for clients and internships. During the internship period, I had the opportunity to attend 2 networking events at DePaul as a representative of LH&A. The experience gained from these events provided me with valuable insights into the responsibilities of outreach on the behalf of the company. During one of these events, another intern and I handled the program without the presence of the president. Naturally, we were nervous as it was our first time managing a networking gathering without assistance. This situation made me realize the significance of representing the company and consider how I could enhance the program. By assuming the role of a company representative, I learned about responsible behavior. Ultimately, the event turned out to be a success, and the feeling of accomplishment is something I will always cherish.
Article: 5 tips to overcome obstacles as an international student
At LH&A, each intern is responsible for writing an article on a topic related to their internship experience. As an international student, I wrote an article “5 tips to overcome obstacles as an international student”. This project allowed me to develop my professional writing skills and storytelling abilities. Given that my article was published on LH&A’s LinkedIn page, it was essential to write in a professional tone and style. I received guidance on how to write contents that would resonate with readers, including the use of professional language, crafting eye-catching graphics, and organizing my thoughts. Additionally, I learned the importance of creating stories, as I initially intended to write in an academic style. The president taught me how to make the article engaging and avoid monotone. According to analytics, audience were business owner (28.1%), journalist (9.4%), public relation specialist (9.4%), corporate trainer (6.3%), student (6.3%)
As a busy student, the ability to work remotely has changed the game. Over the last 10 weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to work for the City of Scottsbluff as a Social Media Education/Outreach Coordinator. The City of Scottsbluff houses approximately 15 in-person workers with few remote employees. Although I grew up in the Scottsbluff area – a small town in the panhandle of Nebraska – working with the City of Scottsbluff has been an educational journey.
Balancing a full-time student role at DePaul University, part-time employment at 360 Chicago, and remote work through the City of Scottsbluff pushed me to polish my time management skills.
So, let’s see a day in the life!
A typical Thursday morning begins at 7:00. I wake up, check my email, catch up on a few assignments, review my schedule for the day, and make the trek to my in-person Entrepreneurship Strategy class at 10:10. After class, I grab some breakfast, find a quiet spot on campus, and get to work.
I use Meta Business suite to schedule posts on the City’s Instagram and Facebook accounts. My work only accounts for a portion of the city’s online presence, so I look at all other posts to stay updated on what’s happening at city hall. The first thing I do is check on the performance of past posts to see what factors drive engagement. The scope of my internship is to provide informational posts for Scottsbluff’s educational outreach initiatives. As general education content generally receives lower engagement, it’s my job to ensure the posts reach the entire community.
One way I learn that the community responds best is through A/B testing. I’m able to test graphics, text length, tone, color theme. . . etc. So, after diving through all recent A/B tests and general content insights, I find a topic to draft. The city previously uses titles such as, “Trash Tip Tuesday,” “Waterwise Wednesday,” or “Safety Tip Saturday,” so I attempt to format my posting to these titles to ensure a sense of familiarity with the community. My manager provides me with a topic/resource list for the various departments.
This Thursday, I decided on a simple post about bicycle safety. After researching the topic, I open Canva and begin working on the graphic. My previous A/B testing shows the city’s audience responds better to infographics over simple pictures. So, I went to work. Canva is an incredible resource with hundreds of preset templates, making editing a simplified and streamlined process. I added the facts and changed the colors to match the design theme I’d set for the city.
Now, time for the post copy. My previous A/B tests reveal that the community prefers a casual, conversational tone. I bounce a few ideas back and forth with ChatGPT. With the help of ChatGPT, I can format cohesive, casual, and informational text for the post in a fraction of the time. ChatGPT does not write the text for me but helps to speed the process up by offering different informational points, creative final sentences, or even suitable emojis.
I schedule the post and hop on a call with my manager. We discuss what the different departments are impressed with and areas I can improve. I offer insight into the steps I’m taking to meet the engagement goals I’ve set for the quarter. Moments to check in and receive feedback are crucial!
After successfully scheduling the post(s), I pack up for the day and head back from campus. Peak times for the City of Scottsbluff’s social media accounts are in the evening, so I hop back on to ensure the content uploads correctly and view any initial metrics.
Some Thursdays, I then head over to my shift at 360 Chicago. Luckily for me, I had the rest of the day off to get ahead on a few school projects.
–Day in the life 5/18-
Throughout this internship, I’ve learned how to set attainable goals and the importance of adhering to job guidelines. The goal metrics I had set at the beginning of the internship were a little too bold for a 10-week position. By revisiting those goals at week 5 and understanding what I’m capable of under the scope of the internship, I set new, attainable goals that accurately display my performance in this position.
As for COVID-19 in the workplace, the Panhandle Public Health District has policies for the City Office and all surrounding businesses. http://www.pphd.org/COVID-19.html
Hello everyone, my name is Aaron Ngo and I’m a senior at Depaul University majoring in digital marketing. In the beginning of the Fall quarter, I had the pleasure of interning at a cloud security startup based in Chicago named oak9. I actually discovered this role through DePaul’s marketing internship blog site where I eventually got to meet Koemi Valencia, oak9’s marketing director and fellow DePaul alumni. I would like to take this time to mention that as someone who’s done a total of three internships now, I would highly recommend checking out the marketing internship blog site if you are a marketing major at DePaul, as I’ve found more success acquiring internship opportunities from there. As a matter of fact, all three of my previous internships came from this blog site!
As for my marketing internship at oak9, I had a hybrid work schedule that allowed me to have one remote work day out of my three scheduled days. During my office days, my day-to-day life really resembled the startup culture. Not only were there fewer employees, but everybody interacted with one another as if they were all in the same department. It was strange at first to see how available the CEO and co-founders were to every employee at oak9, both in person and online. However, after understanding how early of a stage this company was at, you really understand how important teamwork is in a startup environment and why people often say “you wear multiple hats”.
My responsibilities during this internship were very timely. Based on the needs of the marketing department at the time I was onboarded, my supervisor would teach me the required tools and practices in order for me to deliver these tasks. I met with my supervisor everyday inorder to learn these new tools and skills, while asking questions along the way. That is also another piece of advice, never be afraid to ask questions. One of my biggest learning lessons interning at oak9 was being intimidated or embarrassed to ask questions that resulted in me wasting more time by attempting to figure it out myself. Luckily, my supervisor reassured me that there is never a “dumb” question and that she understands that I’m here to learn as much as I can.
Other than the responsibility of setting up appropriate 1-on-1s with my supervisor, a daily aspect of my internship consisted of attending department meetings. A majority of these meetings were intended for oak9’s plans entering the new year, more specifically the marketing team’s strategy and goals for the quarter one of 2023. Although I was fairly new and held an intern position, my department really valued my input and I really got to understand how everybody contributes to the startup as a whole. I got to witness, in such a short period of time, how certain ideas and plans can come to fruition. Having attended meetings inside and outside of marketing, I was able to understand how each department depends on one another and how important it is for everyone to be on the same page. For instance, certain marketing tasks would require specific website changes that are assigned by the IT department or certain representatives in the sales team could not do their daily calling practices until the lead lists were updated by the marketing team.
Although a startup may sound fast-paced or stressful, I can confirm that you’re able to acquire a diverse set of skills and experiences in a short period of time. Having been there for 10 weeks, I gained experience in lead generation, marketing operations, public relations, and project management. Across all these different roles I got exposure to marketing tools. I also appreciated learning a lot about the cloud security industry and being immersed in the Chicago tech startup ecosystem. Most importantly, I got a better understanding of what specific roles in marketing I enjoy, or am more interested in. As I’m expected to graduate soon, it’s really important to me that whatever job role I decide to commit upon graduation is something that I genuinely enjoy and will help me grow as a marketer. Which leads me to my last piece of advice, which is to explore different roles and experiences. That doesn’t just mean different job roles, but different types of industries, organization types, remote structures, brands vs agencies, etc. You never know what you might enjoy and it never hurts to expose yourself to something new!
Maristan is part of the mental health industry. It is a non-profit organization based in California. Their clinical, educational, and research-based approach was inspired by traditional Maristans. Maristans were the world’s first psychological treatment centers in the world. They were established in the 8th century in the Muslim world. Maristan aims to revive this tradition of a holistic approach to healing mental health issues. Much of their work also stems from the Stanford Muslim Mental Health & Islamic Psychology Lab, to inform holistic healing for clients and provide culturally and spiritually congruent, professional, accessible, affordable mental health care for all. Maristan uses their social media platforms to destigmatize mental illness in the Muslim community. Maristan connects people’s beliefs and traditions to mental health advice backed by research. Some people wrongly attribute mental health problems to a lack of religiousness. Maristan’s posts spread awareness about the difference between spiritual and psychological health. They do this by respecting people’s beliefs and traditions and demonstrating how taking care of their mental health is congruent with their beliefs.
During this winter quarter, I had the opportunity to work as a social media and events marketing intern at Wellness4Every1. As I was looking at the application for this internship, what struck for me to apply was the company’s mission and purpose as a nonprofit organization. Wellness4Every1 was solely created to provide quality access of wellness and arts programming for underserved students. The company is quite small regarding to employees but has impacted over 120 schools and 15,000 students in the Chicago area. The interns are extremely prevalent when it comes to promotional and marketing division of the company.
I meet with my supervisor and social media team on a weekly basis, every Wednesday. Our supervisor would start off with reporting company updates, most of these updates were about upcoming fundraising events and planning for it. Then, we discuss the weekly tasks for each intern and update our workflow document which makes it easy to track our assignments. Each week I had unique, different tasks except for my ongoing Instagram story posts for every Saturday and Sunday morning. Most of my tasks include coming up with social media post ideas, creating educational and promotional reels, posting, writing captions, recording clips for videos, and attending fundraising events.
During my position as a social media marketing intern, I was asked to also help as an events marketing intern with my supervisor, Jamie. We started to meet every Tuesday afternoon on zoom and discussed potential sponsorships I could reach out to through email marketing. Doing this, I learned how to B2B market through communicating through different marketing teams and learning how to successfully write a convincing email. As I plan and write the proper email structure, I explored numerous different health and wellness brands to see how our mission can connect with theirs and how the sponsorship could benefit them. For example, I connected with the company, Guayaki, for possible sponsorships and donations. I was able to get the company to donate their Yerba Mate drinks for our upcoming fundraising events. It was such an incredible experience for me as an intern to secure this partnership.
I spent a lot of my time working from home; my daily responsibilities would be to film videos, putting them together for Instagram reels and writing captions for posts. When writing captions, it requires me to research about the topic the post is focused on (yoga, boxing, cooking, and dancing) to inform the audience about the benefits of wellness and supporting the company’s cause. In contrast to events, I would help set up the booth, put swag bags together, go up to people and convince them to learn about our mission by offering free products. With all these new and special experiences, I gained knowledge on how to market several different ways which I believe will benefit my future marketing career.
Overall, becoming an intern at Wellness4Every1 has taught me the importance of non profit organizations and the inner works of successfully generating growth and profit. I am grateful for Wellness4Every1 to give me this opportunity to gain these life long skills as a marketer.
A day in my life working at Nortech this summer looked like many things. Somedays, the office was quiet, other days, it was loud while the entire office played bean bag toss. Somedays, I had meetings and talked to different departments. Somedays, I worked all day in my cubicle and only got up for lunch and the bathroom. Every day was different for me, from meetings to talking to new people and learning new things. Every day I got to experience something new, and I think that was the best part of my internship.
As a Digital Marketing Intern, I worked on a small team. Because of this, I had the chance to work on a multitude of different projects. My main points of learning consisted of digital marketing, looking at demand generation, SEO & content marketing, and marketing automation. As well as community marketing, through event planning, branding, and employee engagement. My last main learning point was market research, where I learned about different methods of research, sources, and objectives.
Every day was different for me, depending on the assignments I was working on during each sprint period. Usually every week, I had meetings with people that worked at Nortech to discuss specific clients Nortech has worked with. These meetings helped me write success stories and press releases on these projects. These meetings and stories were a big part of my job, seeing as I wrote a lot of Nortech’s blog posts. These meetings were usually conducted through Microsoft Teams because not everyone I talked to worked in the Maple Grove location. Some tasks I did almost every day consisted of emailing people, using Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Word, and Excel, talking with people in the office, posting and editing drafts on WordPress, and working on whatever assignments I had for that week.
The marketing team met every other week on Tuesdays for marketing work and prioritization meetings in the summer. We worked in sprints of two weeks, so when I was assigned tasks, I had two weeks to complete those assignments. During these meetings, we would go over the marketing roadmap and talk about the progress of different work items that were assigned to members of the team. During the fall quarter, I met with my supervisor every other week on Fridays to discuss upcoming projects, review past ones and give a run-down of any projects I was working on. These progress meetings helped me stay on track with my work and gave me the opportunity to ask any questions regarding the projects I was working on.
Typically after any meeting, I would make sure to write down any additional notes made in the meeting that would be helpful in the completion of an assignment. I would then check Sharepoint to double-check what I have been assigned before I started. For the summer and the fall quarter, mapping out my week and planning out what days I had time to work on assignments helped me navigate and control my schedule better. I learned a lot about time management in doing this especially, in the fall quarter while I had all my classes to balance on top of making sure I am completing my work for Nortech on time.
In the summer, I worked at the office located in Maple Grove. I went in every week Monday through Thursday, from 9-5. On Fridays, I worked from home and worked a half day. For the fall quarter, I worked from home and my hours were very flexible because of my classes. Due to Covid 19, many people from the Maple Grove office worked from home. Because of this typically the same people would come into the office every day in the summer. This allowed me to get to know the people that came in every day and network.
I went into my internship not knowing much about what a manufacturing company does. I had to quickly adjust and learn as much as I could so I could do well in my position. I had the chance to meet with so many different people and learn about what they do. Every week on Thursdays, in the summer, the interns had a meeting with one of the leaders at the company. We attended this meeting in person and had the opportunity to learn firsthand about their career path and how they got to where they are today. I can confidently say I now know more than I ever thought I would about how a manufacturing company internally operates and how important every department is in the fulfillment of a product. This experience opened me up to a new channel of marketing I was not sure I would enjoy, being business-to-business.
School and my education have helped me learn a lot about my passion for marketing, but my internship at Nortech has taught me far more than I could have ever asked for. From working on email campaigns, conducting market research, writing web content, developing a web page, writing press releases and success stories, event planning, brand building, and experiencing working in an office environment, this experience has been extremely rewarding. Now that my internship is coming to an end, I can confidently say that I have learned so many valuable skills. These skills range from communication, building a network, storytelling, design skills, time management, and most importantly navigating my marketing career. Because of how great interning at Nortech was for me, working with another B2B company in the future is 100% something I would do again.
Zesa Wellness offers evidence-based mindfulness programs for the healthcare workplace. Founded in 2016 by co-owners Ashely Hardcastle and Dr. Maitri Vaidya. Both hold a strong background in philosophy, yoga, meditation, and mindfulness. Zesa lands in the industry of ‘Occupational Wellness’ which is a fast and growing industry.
This is a public company with a B2B business model of consulting with Wellness Coordinators in the healthcare industry to gain clientele. The business model is constructed of offering several types of courses. Currently the top courses have been self-compassion, cultivating gratitude, and connection and communication.
“My favorite part of this business is that I am able to really explore the act of mindfulness with these professionals”
“The classes that really helped me prepare for this role was IME. In those courses I learned how to successfully research a company and utilize the databases and research tools provided by Depaul University, and also gained the skills and the lengths of which research details are most important for my client”
Brilliant Staffing is a privately owned staffing firm located in Chicago, Illinois. There are offices in Downers Grove, IL, Schaumburg, IL, and Fort Lauderdale, FL. Brilliant specializes in the industries of accounting, finance, and technology; with specific divisions including Financial Staffing, Financial Search, Management Resources, and Technology Staffing. These specific divisions focus on three main employment types, these are contract, contract-to-hire, and direct hire. Our CEO is Sheldon Schur, CFO is Patrick Sullivan, and VP of Operations is Sagar Pandya.
Brilliant works for both companies and individuals, with business development managers sourcing open jobs and recruiting managers sourcing the candidates to fill those jobs. There are also administrative employees who handle the day-to-day operations of the company and the marketing team that comprises of Laurie Vicente, Tom Pye and me.
Follow Abbey Cerek along as she vlogs her day in the life with her internship at Brilliant Staffing and see how she manages her work and class schedule with helpful tools like to-do lists.
Women in Sports Tech–founded in 2017–is a nonprofit aimed at increasing the representation of women and nonbinary individuals in the sports tech industry through connecting with young professionals and companies looking to diversify their talent pool. I first became aware of WiST through its Discover Sports Tech series, where I learned about the variety of roles in the industry. While “sports tech” may sound like it focuses on roles in AI, computer science, and wearable technology, this field encompasses sports science, marketing, human resources, product, engineering, and more!
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Maristan is part of the mental health industry. It is a non-profit organization based in California. Their clinical, educational, and research-based approach was inspired by traditional Maristans. Maristans were the world’s first psychological treatment centers in the world. They were established in the 8th century in the Muslim world. Maristan aims to revive this tradition of a holistic approach to healing mental health issues. Much of their work also stems from the Stanford Muslim Mental Health & Islamic Psychology Lab, to inform holistic healing for clients and provide culturally and spiritually congruent, professional, accessible, affordable mental health care for all. Maristan uses their social media platforms to destigmatize mental illness in the Muslim community. Maristan connects people’s beliefs and traditions to mental health advice backed by research. Some people wrongly attribute mental health problems to a lack of religiousness. Maristan’s posts spread awareness about the difference between spiritual and psychological health. They do this by respecting people’s beliefs and traditions and demonstrating how taking care of their mental health is congruent with their beliefs.
