Help Wanted: How I Found My Internship
In the Dicke College of Business here at ONU, every student
is required to participate in an internship in order to complete the
requirements to graduate from the university. This is a very stressful part of
the road to graduation that every student takes because it is the time to put
all of our classroom knowledge and transfer it to real life situations. As stressful
as it is, I believe it is a very useful part of ONU’s curriculum and why ONU
has such a high success rate of alumni in the workplace. Coming into my junior
year, my internship was the biggest stress of them all. I had so many questions
like what internship, where would I go, how would I begin my search and would I
be accepted if I applied. My initial reaction was to panic like always, but
slowly it was something that slowly became a part of my nightly routine to pray
for and things really started to fall into place from there.
It all started one week when I met with my advisor. I knew I
was going to struggle finding an internship because I had no idea what I wanted
to do with my life. Let’s face it, graduation is coming soon, and I still don’t
know what I want to do but I have a much better idea now. After my meeting with
my advisor I walked away very discouraged and troubled because of the lack of
progress I had made with the conversation. It was a normal Thursday for the
most part so most of my day was spent doing homework and preparing for Fusion. I
just remember sitting at my desk not knowing what to do or think, and yes, I
was overreacting but never mind that. I just started praying that something
would come my way and I would take any position no matter what it was as long
as it got me the credit to graduate.
That night I walked into Fusion like normal and took my
seat. After the typical ice breaker game and announcements, we watched a video.
Normally there is a speaker but this week it was a video sermon by a Pastor
named Pete Wilson from a church in Nashville, Tennessee. His topic was about
his book titled, “What Keeps You Up at Night?” and basically it was about
chasing your dreams but following God’s plan for your life and how to find it.
You know those times you go to church and the sermon seems to be tailored just
for you? Fusion was for me that night and about an hour before I didn’t even
feel like going.
After the service I talked to one of my good friends about
CRU Winter Conference. I had gone the year before and I was getting excited
about sign-ups because it changed my life last year and I wasn’t going to miss
out this year. He directed my attention to ONU’s CRU advisor, Rob Naim. Rob
came over and we discussed my passion for going back to Winter Conference and
he could see how much it had affected me. This led him into telling me about an
internship opportunity and I almost collapsed. He began to explain how this
internship was no ordinary internship. Crossroads was the name of it and it
sounded like a dream come true. It was based out of Chicago, it was missions
based and I would get to do creative work for different CRU projects such as
Winter Conference and Global Missions. I applied as soon as I could because
this was an opportunity that I Just couldn’t miss.
I think getting an internship is the most nerve wrecking part of the DCBA program honestly. It's probably the hardest thing to do in any college at any university. Putting yourself out there and having to get a big kid job is super intimidating. I think we're lucky that ONU helps so much, and I'm so jealous you get to be in Chicago! The Windy City is my favorite City. I'll definitely be curious to hear about your internship as a fellow marketing major!
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