My name is Taylor Uyeno and I am a senior standing Business Marketing major at Fresno State University. I first learned about Marketing Plus through the internship program at Fresno State. Marketing Plus was looking for a Social Media/Account Coordinator intern for Fall 2020. I had been interested in finding an internship to see if marketing was a career journey I even wanted to pursue in the future, so I thought this would be the perfect opportunity!
The initial process to apply for this internship was something I have never experienced. I was required to write a cover letter (which I had never done before), submit my resume, and wait for a potential call back. Of course, as a business student, teachers try to prepare you as best as they can with mock interviews in class or with peer interviews. The questions I was asked are EXACTLY what was taught in class. Concluding the interview, I was asked if I had any questions. THIS is something that isn’t really taught in the classroom setting. Yes, we are encouraged to ask questions to get juicier information on the company, but teachers don’t exactly specify what kind of questions we should be asking companies. Some people think it’s a bad question to ask when you’ll hear back to see if you have landed the position, but I went with my gut and asked anyway! They informed me they had other potential candidates and they would be in touch. I ended up getting a call back which eventually turned into me getting hired, yay!
Fast forward to now! WOW is all I can say. I understand marketing from a textbook point of view, but in person there is such a deeper depth to it! There are so many other factors when it comes to working with a company and learning everything from logistics, maintaining advertising budgets, and even customer engagements! While it does help having a business background, there are still things I learned that I would never be able to experience through a textbook. For example, budgeting hard costs for a contest giveaway. You have such high expectations of the outcome, and then reality sets in, LOL! It’s one thing to budget financially for yourself, but when it comes to a business’s finances, you cannot afford (quite literally) to mess up.
I have learned a lot in the few months I have been here, and it has been nothing but a pleasurable experience I will never forget. Expectations versus reality really set in here and pushed me to figure out what I want to do with my career. Marketing is absolutely a career path I wish to pursue, and this internship helped me figure that out. I am extremely thankful for the opportunity and I hope another student is able to figure out their career path with this wonderful company.
