Second Post
The internship I did this summer at The Hoop Group has allowed me to experience a lot of different concepts taught in my classes and brought them to life. The area where I saw the biggest overlap between class concepts and real life experiences was with my class in events and facilities management, which largely described the actions I performed as an operations intern.
In this class, I learned about the 5 Cs of event management:
- Concept
- Coordination
- Control
- Culmination
- Closeout
I got to experience the last two during my internship, the culmination and closeout of the event. In my opinion, the culmination was the most important aspect of event management because it is where the work the executives and events staff did through the first three steps came to fruition.
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, some of the responsibilities that I was tasked with completing included college coach check-in, player check-in, and selling day or weekend tickets. The best part of my internship was that none of it ever felt like I was working, compared to my other summer job at home in the food service industry. Every task and job, I was given, despite it technically being “work,” was fun. I have a passion for basketball, and just to be in an environment and culture where basketball is everyone’s passion was second to none.
I discovered the internship grant that helped to fund my position by accident as I navigated through the financial aid portal. Once I found the list of grants that were offered, I stumbled across this internship grant managed by the Career Center and funded by the Financial Services Grant. Applying for this grant was not a difficult process and was relatively similar to other financial aid forms like the FAFSA or financial aid offered by the school through scholarships or other aid. I would encourage other students to pursue some sort of internship grant if you are doing a low-paid or unpaid internship; it does not have to the one that I received as there are others you might be more qualified for.
I pursued this internship not because I wanted money, but because I wanted the experiences that came from working for The Hoop Group and being around a sports organization environment, which is something that I am interested in pursuing as my career after graduation. You might not have thought about doing an internship, but the experience can teach a person a lot about themselves and if the field they intern in is a good fit to pursue as a future career.