Category: Uncategorized

I am interning for the Scranton Fringe Festival, a multi-day performing arts festival that takes place in downtown Scranton.  Not only is this festival great for the arts, but it also benefits many local businesses that serve as venues for the performances.  This is an ideal internship for me because I am a strategic communication major with a track in advertising and minors in theater and general business.

Through this internship I hope to assist with and further learn how to successfully develop short term and long term events. I have already worked on two events for the Fringe.  One event was a marketing workshop for the artists involved with the festival.  I had the opportunity to plan and execute a live stream for the artists from out of town.  In addition to working at the workshop, I had the chance to sit in on the event and listen to the guest speaker.

A project I am helping with is assisting the Fringe to get more sponsors.  So, I have been meeting with many business owners to discuss buying ads in the festival’s program.  These skills in communication and negotiation will be crucial to my career, and I am grateful to be able to start fine tuning them now.

I have a huge love for theater, and I try to support it in any capacity that I can, so I cannot wait to continue doing so with the Fringe this summer!

Allison Northrop
Strategic Communication

This summer I am interning at the American Lung Association as a Special Events intern.

From this experience, I hope to learn more about non-profit organizations and how they impact other organizations and people in the community. I work with the Development Team, and our focus is getting more individuals aware and educated on lung health, and the direct impact lung health has on our friends, family, and the people in our community through fundraising and educational events. As a Human Resources major, I am also hoping to learn more about the differences and similarities in HR departments and practices between for-profit organizations and non-profit organizations.

I think that this experience will positively impact my career path because I am exposed to the incredible mission that the Lung Association has and how they work with the community to create a better place to live. I enjoy working at a place that has a purpose and that does meaningful work. The workplace culture at the ALA is such a positive and exciting place to work, and I think this will directly impact my career path as I look for this kind of culture in the future jobs I have.

Caitlin Tulaney
Human Resources

For years I have wanted to be a computer engineer, but what does that entail? I’ve learned it encompasses many different fields and that technology reaches all aspects of our lives. My internship is at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, the governing body of highways, airports and any other travel for the state of Massachusetts. Going into this, I had ideas of what I would be doing and what I wanted to get out of this. I wanted to gain a better understanding of how the technology industry is used within the department to communicate with others and the essential role that technology plays in the transportation industry. Technology such as computers, Autonomous vehicles, and network shared drives are a huge part of the industry. Being able to share information, receive information and update the public about what is going on in their state is essential. This will help my career path because I am truly unsure of what I want to do with my degree, so to see technology being utilized in many different fields will help me determine where I can use my skills to help improve the technology people use in different industries or help me determine if I want to create new technology. This internship is the beginning of determining what I want to do with my life.

What I hope to learn from this amazing experience is what I need to do as a female individual to be prepared to the best of my ability for my future in law enforcement. In a male dominated field I want to represent females in the most encouraging way possible. I would like to not only meet people from within the USMS (US Marshals Service), but I hope to network with several different agencies and to create for myself a sturdy platform to build off upon graduation. Having contact with people who work for the federal government is a great way to learn little details that the general public may not know, such as agencies I should apply to, things I should avoid, and most importantly how I should prepare myself efficiently and effectively. I anticipate that this experience will also show me what to expect when I enter the work force. Things may not always be what you expect, and I need to learn to take the good with the bad; I expect to encounter both ends of the spectrum while interning for the USMS. I hope to gain information that will help expand on my preexisting knowledge in the criminal justice area that will help me moving forward, not only in my future career, but during my time still here at The University of Scranton.

Below are some pictures!

Allison Santoro
Psychology

My passion is motorsports and it is my aspiration to work in the motorsports industry after college. As a college student, I strive to do all that I can to gain an understanding of the sport and the different facets that exist in it. My internship at SMI will help me to learn about another facet in the sport and will connect me with professionals in the sport that I hope to work in one day.

NASCAR Monster Energy Series Victory Lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway

Coca-Cola 600 Victory Lane at Charlotte Motor Speedway

Mark Miller
Marketing/Business Administration

As my internship has ended, I have taken a look back on the ten weeks I have spent in New York City with the Securities and Exchange Commission. I had experienced such great things that I would not have been able to see and feel anywhere else in the world. I was able to eat some of the best food in the world. This included an ice cream sandwich with two black and white cookies, vanilla ice cream, and everything bagel toppings around the ice cream. It sounds odd but is one of the best desserts I have ever had. Pizza does not compare to anywhere else in the world and I don’t know how many different types of cultural food I had eaten, but it is like I traveled the world in that aspect. I was present for multiple bomb scares. In times of great terrorist turmoil, I fully expected to be threatened by possible bombs and shootings. I fully knew the risks but knew that they could not change the way I live my life or they would win. One was on the subway platform I use to get to work in Grand Central Station. Another affected the commute of many colleagues that caused an eight hour standoff with NYPD in Columbus Circle. Lastly, another one was in the newly built and magnificent World Trade Center Transportation Hub. Seeing first hand what big city workers and dwellers have to live with quite frequently was eye opening. These may have only been threats, but a threat can turn into reality in a second. Lastly, I was able to participate in events in the city as well. I played in two different table tennis tournaments. One was with the SEC, which I ended up winning. The other was at Bryant Park and was truly humbled by a 21-17 win in the first round but a 21-2 loss in the second round.

Those are some of my experience in New York City with my internship but the most rewarding experience was probably finishing up an assignment and submitting it to my supervisor. It always felt amazing knowing that I was helping in some way in the examination of a broker dealer. I was taking work off the hands of the other examiners and we were collaborating and making sure all numbers and detail match up and there were no hints of suspicious activity. Every assignment I was able to work on, I learned something new that I have yet to experience in my college career. This was knowledge that helped me perform better on later assignments and in just a few weeks I was able to take home knowledge I had never even known existed in the financial world.

One of the biggest challenges of the internship was the traveling. My personal discipline was tested each and every day. I am a person that takes fitness seriously. I believe great fitness and discipline lead to a happy and healthy life. Commuting three hours each way to and from the city made it incredibly difficult to continue my fitness goals to the level I wanted. A typical day without working out would have me waking up at 5:45AM to catch a 6:30AM train. This would get me to work at exactly 8:40 with no delays. However, I needed to stay disciplined even in these times of early mornings and late nights, I had to stay disciplined and continue to reach for my fitness goals. That meant waking up at 4:30AM four out of five mornings during the work week to get at least an hour of training in before my work day started. This led to me being incredibly tired at some points but was something that needed to be done. This kept my motivation strong because, to me, it was a major accomplishment waking up so early day in and day out. This may have been the biggest challenge of the internship.

Overall, I was incredibly happy with how my internship experience played out throughout the ten weeks. I learned more than I ever could have imagined, met a few Scranton alumni that worked at the SEC, came home with many contacts, and ate GREAT food many times. I could not have had a more rewarding summer after only my first year of college.

Dan Muenkel
Accounting/Finance

The most rewarding part of my internship had to be the group work my team and I completed throughout the program. I was fortunate to be paired off with a great group of interns to come up with a performance management workshop. This task was rewarding to me, because we started with no background on what performance management was. However by the end of the ten weeks, not only did we feel like experts, but we were also teaching other city employees about performance management. The workshop that we created got great feedback from all the participants and the city is going to use this workshop in the future. We started a brand new project and to see the final result get such great feedback was very rewarding.

Another experience that I fond very rewarding was when the mayor spoke to us at the final ceremony. He seemed to be very appreciative of the work we were doing and handed us all certificates for our achievements. There were several news stations filming this event, and I was able to watch myself on 6ABC later that night. It was a great experience to see that all of our hard work was did not go unnoticed.

While the commute wasn’t great, the most challenging part of my internship was interacting with high level city employees. For the performance management workshop, my team was constantly presenting information to other city employees. At first it was difficult for me as an intern, to feel confident enough to present, and even teach a lot of this information to employees much higher up in the city. However with enough time and practice, presenting to these employees came a lot smoother. The final stage in this project was to present what we have done to the mayor’s “A – Team” who are employees who work very closely with him. We all had to memorize what we were going to say and present to over forty people. Speaking in front of all these people was challenge, but since we spent so much time practicing what we were going to say, and presenting to smaller groups, we were still very successful.

Chris Louin

The most challenging part of my internship is navigating the transitional period that the Bureau of Disease Control is currently experiencing. At the beginning of my internship the Director resigned to take on a new job, the research technician went out on maternity leave, and STD typist also left for a new job. The changes in staff resulted in the department being understaffed and everyone taking on new responsibilities. This transition period has been difficult for me because there has not been one point person in charge of my internship. However, due to the transition, I have been given more responsibilities on research projects because of the lack of regular staff. I have more ownership and input on the projects which has helped grow my research skills.

The most rewarding part of my internship is helping out with the Refugee Assistance clinics. These clinics are held off site, in the part of the county where the most refugees live. The clinic is set up in the basement of an un-air-conditioned church and served roughly 120 refugees a week. This summer, Onondaga County has received an influx of new refugees entering the county. All of these refugees must be screened for Tuberculosis, which is what we do at the clinic. The clinic is often very busy and full of people from many different countries. On any given day, I can hear 5 or more different languages being spoken among the refugees. The staff sometimes finds it difficult to communicate with the refugees because of their limited English, however that does not diminish the level of care which is provided. The staff is compassionate and caring towards all of the patients and the staff serve as my role models for how I want to administer care as a future health care professional.

The most rewarding part of my internship as an organic chemistry undergraduate research student was experiencing an atmosphere that could one day become my workplace. Although one can visit work sites and be told about what jobs in chemistry research will be like, I got the chance to actually live the life of a researcher for 10 weeks and immerse myself in it completely. However, the most challenging part of my internship is the effort that must be put in to dedicate oneself to one thing for so long. In school, I am used to working on a paper for a few days, turning it in, and being done with it forever. In research and a full time job, the work all relates and piles on itself, causing you to never actually be finished. It takes a large amount of dedication to continually immerse oneself in research, because a great discovery will never come overnight.

Alex Gardner
Chemistry/Philosphy