So my internship has unfortunately come to an end. I have to say it was my favorite one thus far. I was able to interact with so many different people in all areas of the company and really learn about the corporate end of retail (I have to say I like it much better than working retail!). On internships as a whole, the biggest benefit is the experience. In my internship with Firefly, a local baby boutique, I was able to do alot of visual merchandising and see how a boutique is managed. From my blogging internship with College Fashionista (which is ironically doing another partnership with AE now), I was really able to hone in on my writing skills. Writing has never been a passion of mine, but it is always something I have wanted to improve upon, I just didn’t have the motivation. So writing a short blog each week was an easy way to help me further myself in that department. And my internship at AE, was just amazing. I was taught about all of the departments in a company (that you are supposed to “know” about but are never taught specifically) with the classes provided by AE. I was able to see the entire production cycle for the retail environment and how it flows, all the way down to the store level (and the many disasters stores encounter that my department would deal with!). I even took away , as stupid as it may sound, business etiquette. Whether it be how to sign your emails, how to set up a conference call with another department, or what phrases to use, I was able to learn first hand how to act in a professional business environment. Luckily I was able to go to my former Aerie manager, Madison with alot of those etiquette questions too! All of these internships have helped me really develop academically and professionally in so many ways, and each one allowed me a different skill set and experience.
I can not stress this enough, but GET AS MANY INTERNSHIPS AS YOU CAN!!!! Even if they are all completely different (like mine were) they will round out your experience and help you hone in on what you really enjoy doing. I don’t think this was a lesson I realized until my third internship. I was just grabbing at whatever I could because my advisor told me to do so, without truly understanding the reasoning. It all made sense, but once all my internships were done, it REALLY made sense. And all these lessons, were things that I could never have learned inside a classroom.
ALBRIGHT ELCDC 