Internships and Capstone...surprise, surprise!

I had a variety of ideas flowing through my head this week, so bear with me on this one. This past week was quite busy, between the massive amount of work I had in my classes and trying to finalize my project idea for Capstone. However, I pushed all of that to the side on Wednesday when three of the seven places I applied to for internships contacted me, requesting interviews. At first, it was an extremely overwhelming feeling. Trying to figure out my schedule with two tests looming in the next two weeks was a task in and of itself. Then, I actually took a minute to think that there was no reason for me to feel overwhelmed. In fact, I should have been overjoyed from the beginning to be past one of the waiting phases: receiving a response. The best news, two out of the three places that contacted me are the top two places I would love to intern. I scheduled interviews for all three places (all in Pittsburgh) and am anxiously preparing for them. I’ve been working closely with the career center since last semester and now it will come full circle with a mock interview coming up on Friday. My fellow classmate/friend Doug Kunst noted in his blog last week that the interview that career center gave was extremely challenging. So much so that it was actually much more difficult than his actual interview for an internship he is pursuing. In a way, I think I will enjoy a challenge before the real deal. It will probably put me much more at ease for when I enter the actual interview. Many of the interviews are for marketing and advertising departments of these companies, which couldn’t be anymore perfect. One actually deals with sports marketing, advertising and media relations, making it ideal for what I am looking to pursue.
The other thing running through my head this week, before the internship interviews, was the topic of my senior capstone project. We took class time in Capstone last week to brainstorm about potential ideas and this week we took time to discuss some more options and what would actually go into our senior project. I began to put more thought into my very vague (and that’s being nice about it) idea for my own Capstone project. After much consideration and though, I’ve narrowed it down to working with the athletic department here at Westminster and trying to promote the college’s sports through a series of posters and other graphics or working in conjunction with development department of my alma mater in order to appeal to many students in the area (my alma mater is a private high school), while still working with the current students on ways we can better the school as a whole. It also crossed my mind to possibly check into doing this for Westminster, since transportation may become an issue for getting back and forth to and from Pittsburgh. In both instances, no matter which one, I would still use posters, flyers, and other tactics of advertising to put its name out there more than it already is. I’m still testing the waters to see if anything else in the field of marketing/advertising develops, but for now I will continue to plan on developing these two ideas into a compromise or “all in one” project. It will certainly be exciting once everyone has selected a topic of interest. I enjoy the discussion in Capstone and have been relieved that many others are still pushing around a variety of ideas on what they could possibly do. In my case, I’m looking for this to be a shining example of what I have done in the Broadcast Department here at Westminster. For now, it’s a slow moving process, but I know in about a month time will start to fly, so that’s why I keep the ideas flying through my head at all times. I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to projects and other school work, so, needless to say, this is something that I am going to keep considering and brainstorming about until I have the perfect idea in place. This project and my continuing internship search are two things that I can’t make major mistakes on. I guess the pressure, so to speak, is on me to make my interviews and every component of my Capstone shine through. Until next time…