So, I have officially been at my summer internship for one month. In that time period I’ve worked the fragrance counter at Macy’s on the day before the second biggest men’s holiday (Father’s Day), I’ve been made over to look like Claire Huxtable for the 100th anniversary of L’Oreal (I was on the 80’s floor… don’t ask), I’ve sat in on meetings where decisions were made not just for U.S. Ralph Lauren marketing but for the entire world, and I have my first photo shoot in two weeks. Okay, so I’m telling you all the fun stuff first. I’ve also been here until 8 pm for a week straight, built Excel models for a presentation to senior management, run to Macy’s in the middle of the day to buy fragrances (very The Devil Wears Prada), learned many French terms (coffret anyone), and pretty much have been trying to wrap my head around what it means to be a Marketing Manager for the top beauty company in the world. New York has been amazing, in part to my internship and in part to the awesome neighborhood that I’m living in, and the fact that I’ve had guests every weekend since May. And while now I do feel like I’m getting settled into my job I still have lots to learn and am getting my project to work on in the next few days. At L’Oreal all summer interns present a project to senior management about a hot business topic. The project is normally something that everyone wants to know the answer to, but that no one really has time to dig into all the data and find it. It’s an actionable project that can be implemented within months, so at the end of the summer I can really say that I’ve had an impact on this business. When you land your internship next summer, make sure you know what you want to get out of it. This has been my first adventure into marketing, so I wanted to make sure that I really understood a day in the life of a marketer. It’s easy for interns to get bogged down with day to day tasks, but if you sit down at the beginning of your internship and say I want to accomplish x, y, and z then you’ll be much more focused and successful than if you just allow your manager to give you all the stuff that they don’t want to do. I’ve also been busy preparing for next school year. I know, I know, its summer and I should be enjoying my time away from Nola, but I can’t stop thinking about school! I want to be super organized when I get back to Nola in August, so I’m already working on compiling a list of prospective companies, getting RLGA activities organized, and trying to figure out how I can get more volunteer time in my schedule. Last year this time I was quitting my job and worrying about school, now I’m loving my job and excited about school. Oh how times have changed!
Amina