How Did I End Up Here?

Ever since I was a freshman in high school I have been working in an advertising agency assisting the account manager as a summer job. Although I enjoyed my job, I never thought that once I finally made my way to Temple University, as a Chemistry major, that I would end up switching my major to Advertising Account Management two years into my college career. Advisers thought I was kidding and were baffled when they reviewed my academic history. Although I knew that this was a drastic change, I never knew that it would lead me right to where I wanted to be.

When I began my internship at Harmelin Media I didn’t know what to expect. I was assuming that I would be given the infamous intern work of filing papers and running for coffee. In my almost three months of working there I can happily say that I never once had to run for coffee and I have been given much more responsibility than I had imagined. Over the past few months I have learned the process of buying exactly what clients want within a budget and learned how to pitch ideas to clients to convince them to purchase more advertising space.

These tasks were something that I became good at and grew to enjoy. Part taking in conferences to negotiate deals with clients made me realizes that I had an interest in sales. After weeks of research and many emails, I have gained the opportunity to work with the president of sales at a chemical company giving me the chance to use the tools that I have learned at Harmelin Media, but also my years of being a chemistry student.

If it weren’t for my internship at Harmelin Media, I would have never been taught how to buy products, negotiate, and pitch ideas to new clients. I would have never been exposed to sales and therefore not realizing that I would grow to enjoy it.

After finishing my internship, I realized just how important they are. Internships not only prepare you for what you could be doing your entire life, but they could potentially lead you to something else that you were unaware of. Out of all the credits that I was required to fill for my undergrad at Temple, I have by far enjoyed fulfilling them for my internship at Harmelin Media the most.