Why I Recommend Asking For What You Want
My fast-paced internship
Hello! My name is Millie Nieves, and I am a graduating senior majoring in Advertising with a concentration in Brand Strategy and Research at Temple University
I am currently working for a restaurant group called Fine Drawn Hospitality.
The locations that are within the group include: Walnut Street Cafe, The Post, and Sunset Social, along with a catering brand that works with events that are booked within these locations
These past few weeks have graced me with an immersive experience that I will be forever grateful for. Learning what it truly means to work a 9-5 within the restaurant marketing industry is an experience I will never forget. The internship position was created for me and is not something that the company has done before, so it was a learning process for everyone involved. To say it was smooth sailing from the beginning would not be truthful, but we ironed out the wrinkles and quickly got to work.
At first, my tasks consisted of creating flyers and email headers, which involved a lot of creative and graphic design. I quickly found out that I enjoyed creating these flyers and establishing a vibe based on the specific event they were for. The flyers/posters ranged from elegant and sophisticated to fun and a little rugged. I even got to develop brand framework guides for all three locations, the featured image is one of the locations Sunset Socials mission state. This
Working within the hospitality marketing industry has shown me a lot about the industry and myself as well. I think after this, I would like to pursue another internship that is related to the beauty, wellness, and fashion industries, as those are industries that align with my passions.
I think this experience has also taught me that higher management’s style truly does affect everyone down the line, no matter how far down that line goes. Not to say that this company has inadequate managerial skills, but attention to detail is important. With limited people working on projects, it is easier for things to get lost.
I will say that this experience was nothing like I had expected. It was more casual than the traditional corporate internship, but I grew to appreciate that as the weather started to heat up. I had expected the Social Media and Marketing Department to be a little more staffed, but the team members had expressed that this works better, even though the workload can tend to take a toll on mental health and work-life balance.
This experience is something that I will forever be grateful for. It will always serve as a reminder that there is a seat for you at every table as long as you are willing to make that seat yours. By establishing and securing this internship for myself, I made sure that seat had my name on it.
Thank you for reading!! I am incredibly excited to see where my future opportunities will bring me!
I really appreciate that you had a position created for you. When you’re the first to do something, it’s something that is cool to look back on. I resonate with the mantra and mindset of “creating a seat for yourself” and chasing down what you want because I feel like that’s a lot of how my experience in life has been. Asking for what you want and taking a shot is always worth it. The worst someone can do is say no and you move onto the next opportunity!
It’s very cool that you were able to create flyers and it is really great that you were able to create a brand guideline for different locations. I know that you don’t have a creative concentration, but brand guidelines are so crucial to brands. Where I’m interning at, one specific client my agency has doesn’t have a brand guideline, which isn’t the worst thing in the world, but it’s interesting that we don’t have guidelines set in stone to follow when it comes to that brand. One thing I wish you expanded on was what else the internship consisted of outside of the creative aspect. When reading, it seemed like the creative part of the internship was only part of what you had done because that section starts with “at first”. This leads me to my question: What else did your internship consist of? Did you have tasks that related to your concentration?
At my internship we learn a lot about Tourism, Hospitality, and Management due to it being one our program that we offer for high school students so reading about your experience in the hospitality world really makes me think of how huge it is! I take walking tours with them sometimes around the city and it makes me really think about how people’s daily jobs are reliant on tourism and it’s wonderful that they can go into this field!
Like what you said in your title, I agree with always asking about what you want and what you need is so important to a field like hospitality and even advertising. It never hurts to ask! However, how do you navigate through your internship with the communications team being a little small? I can relate to that because our external affairs team is also small, but we’re mighty!