Internship with Department of Athletics at Ohio State

Starting last fall to this May, for a whole academic year, I interned for Ohio State Department of Athletics as an event management intern. I served as a secondary event manager at 25 different athletic games including football, hockey, and women’s volleyball. I worked as liaison role to redcoats and ushers on game day and deliver professional customer services to over 1200 audience.

(This is the picture that I was working for Taylor Swift’s concert)

I have enjoyed my time at the event management in Department of Athletic. One cool thing about the internship is we have monthly meeting which would host former interns/ guest speakers to talk to us about their experience in the sports industry. The former interns talked about their transition from student interns to full time working professionals. They shared their advice of finding a job, doing interviews and what this internship with event management has brought them. Guest speakers are business partners who have worked with Ohio State before. They have all had 5 to 10 years’ experience in the industry and they generously shared their background with us. It is wonderful to have some professional development opportunities during the internship.

Entering my junior and senior year, the stress of finding a full-time job is in the air. Given the opportunity to connect some former interns and industry professionals through the meetings enables me to broaden my network and hear their insights about an industry. Having a series professional development session really helped me to think about my career goal and prepare for that.

One of the biggest changes I have seen in myself is I came from someone who’s nervous about interviews and had no good story to tell to a confident Sarah who can tell her story vividly and show her strength to the interviewers. I really appreciate the event management team which has given me countless chances to fully participated in all kinds of athletic games, volunteer opportunities and concert operations. Those experiences are unforgettable to me and they enabled to get my foot in the door.

I can’t get where I am at without STEP’s support. The STEP expo I went to made me be aware of all kinds of activities that STEP support other than study abroad. The internship with Department of Athletics is my first internship and it has definitely led me to bigger places. I have gone through many interviews at the end of my junior year looking for internships. As I was doing the interviews, interviewers were interested in what I did at Department of Athletics as sports is a big thing at Ohio State. I ended up getting an internship in the summer because I have had previous internship experiences in such a well known department!