Every year thousands of students choose to take part in an internship program at their school.
An internship provides a student with an inside look into life after college.
It gives them the opportunity to experience the real world and gain first-hand knowledge of the profession they will be entering into when they graduate.
Quinnipiac junior Stephanie LeBow has done just that.
LeBow got an internship at Weber Shandwick Worldwide is a public relations firm in Manhattan, where she hopes to work when she graduates.
Weber Shandwick deals with consumer marketing, public affairs and crisis management and the firm is located on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.
LeBow began her internship when she was 18 years old.
To get the internship, she met with the head of Human Resources, which is the person that does the hiring in most companies, and submitted her resume.
“It was a whole new experience for me,” said LeBow.
While interning at Weber Shandwick Worldwide she gained valuable experiences. During her days there, she would help with things bookkeeping, going to consumer events, research and making pitch calls to publications.
“I also got experience sitting in on conference calls and going to meetings,” said LeBow.
“I did a lot of work with companies such as Q-tips and Dunkin Donuts,” said LeBow.
About every two weeks, the company would do something called “lunch and learns” for interns.
At these “lunch and learns,” people from different parts of the company would teach aspects of the firm and public relations to the interns while they ate, using PowerPoint and videos.
“The ‘lunch and learns’ were a great experience because they gave me the opportunity to learn new things,” said LeBow.
Having an internship provides students with a totally different experience than what they receive in the classroom.
“I got hands on experience working there, and I learned to interact with other professionals in the same field,” said LeBow.
The knowledge that LeBow gained was another important lesson while having an internship.
“For my internship I had to commute to the city, said Lebow. “It was a 40 minute commute and I had to wake up at 6 a.m. and get dressed in work attire.”
Lebow said that she sat on the train into the city every day drinking coffee and reading the paper like everyone around her was doing
This was an experience that taught LeBow that having a job is much different than rolling out of bed and going to class in pajamas.
The experience LeBow gained while working at Weber Shandwick was priceless.
“It showed me the skills that I needed to posses in order to be in this field,” said Lebow,”. “It made me realize that public relations is what I want to do.”