COM 5010 Internship Final Report - Sarah Bishop

Sunny Chen

A summer internship opportunity is necessary and important for a college student to develop his/her skillset in a particular field whether it is; Microsoft excel, Adobe Photoshop, Client Communication, Social Media, and etc., the application of your knowledge is the only you will learn. Embarking on this journey in both COM 5010 and my internship has given me a lot of value and fresh perspective in tackling challenges and working with different types of people.

Question One

Currently I am still in the middle of my internship here at Universal McCann / IPG, and it is quite busy as we have lots of short-term and long-term projects being worked on. I want to share our long-term project that is due at this internship’s conclusion and it deals with creating a business plan and client pitch for our organization’s senior executives. Just for background information; we are required to pitch our agencies one to two companies to pursue and create global media plans with, this is to our discretion and recommendation, as well as presenting an accompanying visual campaign for the year of 2017. We expect this project to be about 50 + slides and will take up 30 minutes or so to present, it is very task and team oriented and important for everyone in the respective teams to keep constant communication.

To assist me in being successful in not only being an intern but a participant in this project, I rely a lot of the knowledge and skills I have adapted from my corporate communications course (COM 4000), at Baruch College. We learned a lot about communicating across different departments and learning how to craft emails and documents to send to your colleagues, in order to foster a positive work ethic and build good rapport. So for this task, I remember the first week I discussed with my team that I am knowledgeable in reaching out to senior employees in our agencies in order to get research information and mentorship on how to approach this project. The group allowed me and placed their trust in me, to set up weekly meetings with departmental heads, VPs, and SVPs in order to get much needed insight on how to outline and present such a heavy presentation.

At the moment I can confidentially say after meeting 14 individuals and reaching out to five Fortune 100 companies, that our group has strong research and connections in order to drive our presentation home this coming August.

Question Three

This is a particularly interesting question to answer, as my experiences as an intern and volunteer has connected me with many fantastic and smart professionals and opened many opportunities regardless of my career path. As a young professional I initially believed that pursuing a career in business or finance specifically, was the path I wanted, and eventually I did intern at several wealth management and investment banking institutions just to confirm if I actually had an affinity for this field. I came to the conclusion that the business world intrigued me given the culture of tackling problems that superseded physical barriers like nations, race, religion and cultures – as business is a form and methodology in how we as interact. Taking this perspective into my internships I was efficient at not only critiquing and identifying problems but providing practical solutions and innovative recommendations in the pipeline. Now coupling this with a college education and the coursework I have been taking, I am fairly certain that my end goal is definitely a business management role whether it is a chief executive or board member. I just crave being in a leadership and consulting role, a teacher, and/or a mentor to not only individuals but growing businesses – and to get there after graduation I require myself not to only learn more skills but to refine and advance the existing ones I have. To note, I do not see myself pursuing a linear career necessarily, but having the capability of mobility across different industries in a position that makes that possible.

Question Four

So in my internship we are a part of this process called a “summer residency” and essentially we are given mentors in not only our respective agencies but have access to many senior professionals in the other agencies and offices. To put this in perspective, we have offices on six continents, and several buildings in New York a lone (it is not uncommon for me to commute across all these local offices to meetings) and we have access and contact with all these amazing people. Given this system, having a mentor or an individual to teach you is definitely not hard to come by.

Speaking in terms of staying connected I have taken upon myself to meet someone new each week during my limited time at this internship, and since I started on the second week of June I have met 21 people that are outside my team. And I labelled these as interest meetings where I would sit down with the person over coffee, lunch, you name it – and in that time it is my mission to:

1) Firstly remember their name

2) Know why and how they are in their current position

3) What are their hobbies, interests, and behavior?

4) What books or inspiration do they draw from?

This insight alongside other information enables me to strike a conversation with people in the future, and generally build a functional relationship with them, to become friends. I realize really early from the get-go that a majority of people network just for the sake of networking, they forget how to make friends.

Volunteering and internships (whether paid or unpaid), are great experiences and modes of work for individuals especially young professional to take part of and pursue in order to develop their skills and intelligence. Despite the fact that my internship is not yet over I am extremely appreciative of my mentors and fellow colleagues and helping me get a step closer to understanding what kind of work I want to dedicate my life to. Meeting and reading the work of other COM 5010 students has been insightful and encouraging in seeing how driven and talented your peers are. It is comforting and will definitely stay with me as I continue down this path of success.

Just to leave a final remake for anyone reading; truly remember and understand not the importance of the work you get and the work you dedicate your hours to, but to the individuals and accompaniments by your side. At the end of the day what matters are the people your work with, not the work you do.

APPENDIX

Example A –Company visual directory on Adobe InDesign and Photoshop

Example B – Multisheet Excel VBA (weekly) Example C– Alcohol and Tech Index (1000 Companies)

Example D – 2017 Planning and report decks Example E – Weekly case competitions and projects