This past summer, I had the opportunity to be a part of a transformational project as a Marketing Intern at Northeast Maglev. It was my first internship in my college career and certainly not the last. I was able to translate the entire website from English to Spanish. The website is now able to reach the Spanish-Speaking community like never before. During this internship, I learned how to create and meet deadlines with my coworkers, learned different marketing methods, organized research data, expanded my creativity in designing presentations, wrote and presented in a professional manner, and even got to learn some web development using WordPress!
This internship gave me the opportunity to work aside professional marketing experts and an interactive intern team. Coming into the internship, I had no idea how much of a positive impact it would create for not only me, but also the company, my coworkers and the public who had yet to learn about the Northeast Maglev project. Learning how to create and meet deadlines was something we would decide as a team. In my college career, I have only ever met the deadlines and not so much been able to create and manage my own. I learned that often deadlines get moved due to uncontrollable events or time management, and that is okay. Not only did my team have team goals, but I was also asked to set individual goals for myself.
Although my biggest individual project was translating the Northeast Maglev website to Spanish, there were a lot of small projects in between. In prior marketing projects in marketing classes, I have learned that different marketing methods are used for different people. There are no such things as one-size-fits-all marketing methods, especially with something as impactful as the fastest train in the world.
Another project that I was a part of was our canvassing event at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Prior to going out into the hot midsummer sun, we had a lot of work to do. We created a survey for people to fill out, organized giveaways which we would share with people who stopped to talk with us, and we practiced the pitch we would give to people. We went out to the harbor with confidence and hope that we would gain more social media followers on all of our social media platforms. We faced challenges but quickly adapted by using each other’s prior experiences and suggestions. Although we were able to give out all of our fun Northeast Maglev merchandise, we found some mistakes we made that only taught us how to do things better the next time!
I liked various aspects of this internship, from our weekly intern meetings, where we would discuss our summer timeline to our Monday lunches where we would discuss our ideas and timeline with our professional marketing experts. Having taken various management courses, I have always read about how a manager should be and how one should work and organize themselves in a corporate environment, but never had real-life experience until this summer. Working in restaurant industry type jobs, there often is unorganized and inconsistent management, but not at Northeast Maglev.
I was asked by my coworker what the most important thing to me was in a workplace, I answered with positivity. Even when I made a mistake in my work or did not understand something, I was always helped with a smile and given effective advice on how to do it better next time. When management is positive, there is a domino effect on everyone else. There was not one day that I did not look forward to going to Northeast Maglev’s Baltimore office. The only thing I did not like was the traffic going home in the afternoons!
Due to my impactful experience at Northeast Maglev, I have a clearer idea of how I envision my career to look when I graduate with a degree in Business Technology Administration from UMBC in the fall of 2020. I am primarily interested in applying to a Tech Connect program. This program would teach me basic Java coding and I would also like to attend a Software Engineer Program. Although I did not get a chance to learn the coding portion of WordPress, I did have the opportunity to learn some WordPress development when I was translating the website into Spanish. I had the opportunity to see the format in which data is input and how different it looks when looking at the website itself. And thanks to my manager, Lauren, I now know about recruiting agencies which will facilitate my future career opportunities.
Although I wish this internship was not coming to an end, I am glad to have been part of an upcoming, transformational project. My coworkers and I were able to help increase the project’s social media followers and come up with new project ideas for future interns while helping people become informed. Dear future interns, SMART goals will help you become more organized, practical and motivated, just ask Lauren! Oh, and let us not forget how important weekly intern meetings are and Monday lunches. I wish you the best of luck and I cannot wait to read your blogs next August!