This past summer, I worked as a growing intern at Bell Nursery in Burtonsville, MD. I am an Agricultural Communications major with a minor in Horticulture and a strong interest in Latino Workforce Development. I was fortunate to be able to utilize my STEP funds to help support my cost of living outside Baltimore while earning $12/hour as a Grower Intern for the large-scale production nursery. Bell Nursery grows many different types of plants for retail at Home Depot stores across the country. My internship included all aspects of working production for a large-scale nursery.

After the first week of working in an extremely hot and humid greenhouse and lifting and weeding, seeding, watering plants, I honestly was not sure I could do it! I felt homesick, as this was my first far distance living from home (Columbus, OH) and I was one of only four females at the entire facility and the only intern. I worked alongside seasonal workers who were all from South and Central American countries. The intense manual labor and isolation were difficult at first; however, I began to build relationships with my coworkers and appreciated the dedication the workers had to cultivate the best plants possible. I love being outside and in nature and this was my solace. The opportunity to work among beautiful plants that I was able to witness as seeds to potted retail-ready plants was gratifying. Moreover, I slowly realized that the hard work, long hours and weekend shifts to keep production running became a labor of love and that was transformational.

After the first four weeks of my internship, I realized I was thriving despite living completely alone for the first time and far from my home and my friends. The production workers appreciated the constant effort I made to hold conversations with them in Spanish. By summer’s end, these workers had truly become a surrogate family to me. I have always loved learning about Latino cultures, history, and languages. In fact, I had completed a study abroad in Costa Rica the year before and talked with them about how impactful that experience was for me. The workers’ attention to detail and desire to produce the best plants possible spoke volumes to me. Most saved their earnings to support relatives in their native countries, and I will never forget the sacrifices I witnessed these employees make to improve the lives of others. I truly believe this experience will stay with me always and push me to champion causes to promote equity and inclusion. The relationships and the interactions I had with my coworkers at Bell Nursery were really instrumental to my transformation. These relationships changed both my academic life and my personal life. I gained a lot of knowledge from my coworkers about horticulture and life in the greenhouse industry, and they were able to share a lot of valuable experience with me. One specific example out of many is how Medin, one of my coworkers, taught me how the begonias in the trial gardens were especially at risk for getting dried out, and so you had to go outside the regular work schedule to give them extra water in order to make sure that they don’t die. This type of tip is something that you can only gain through observation and experience, and he was able to share that with me. This, in turn, made me a more capable and knowledgeable greenhouse worker. The interactions with my coworkers also taught me a lot about cultural differences and communication skills. 99% of the employees at the Burtonsville Bell Nursery production greenhouses that I worked with are Hispanic/Latino and speak little to no English. At first I thought this would be an insurmountable barrier for me— however, I quickly learned that this only further transformed my worldview into a broader and more cultured one. I started out with beginner-intermediate Spanish skills when I started working at Bell, but by the end of the summer, I was fully conversational. This came to me by talking with my coworkers day in and day out in only Spanish, and I was able to appreciate the struggle of learning another language more than if I did know them. They were very kind and helpful, and they contributed to my overall transformation by giving me the knowledge and skills I need to be successful, as well as making me a more compassionate and understanding person.

I am so grateful that I had this experience to work in Burtonsville, MD is a challenging position that exposed me to the horticulture industry. I am much more confident and sure of my goals to pursue a career in a role that allows me to promote sustainable methods within horticulture. I know my work will require travels far from home and I am now able to see myself doing this. Up to this point, I have been very close to my family and friends in Columbus, and living alone in another state and working with others, who spoke very little English, forced me out of my comfort zone. I have grown to appreciate and value every single facet that goes into growing plants. My knowledge of how to propagate and maintain healthy plants for retail has made me a stronger candidate for my job search for career employment. I am graduating this May and the experiences from this internship (that STEP funds helped to supplement the cost of living) provide me with very pertinent and applicable experiences to share in interviews.

My STEP Signature Project with Cincinnati Reds primarily revolved around working with the organization’s ticketing department. On a typical game day, I could expect to execute fan club and All-You-Can-Eat pass sales throughout the ballpark. In addition, on special occasions, I was able to help with promotions, projects, and events throughout the year. These included concerts with artists like Zedd and X Ambassadors, theme nights like “Bark in the Park”, and on-field experiences such as batting practice viewing with clients.

Prior to beginning my STEP Signature Project, I anticipated myself changing in a way that showed not only myself, but also those around me, that I could work and live on my own, being self-sufficient. In addition, I hoped to have my project show me that in the future, I will continue to thrive despite an increase in responsibility. Furthermore, another hope I had for my internship was that I would come to find that more people than not are willing and eager to help one another. Overall, I would say that throughout the summer, each hope of mine listed above became a reality: I became more comfortable with accepting greater responsibilities and excelled in doing so. Moreover, I quickly came to realize that I was working with a cohesive unit every day–one that was built on the desire to see the next man or woman succeed.

In regard to proving to myself that I could live and work on my own, no single event stood out to me as the transformational moment. Rather, I felt that living on my own over the summer as a whole was the big “activity” that increased my confidence in my self-sufficiency. Living on my own was simply something that hadn’t I done before. From growing up with 3 siblings, to having a roommate for my first 2 years of college, I was never truly forced to “do life” without someone else being by my side or supervising me. Continually, although this summer was a bit different in that sense, it provided me opportunities try new things, like learning how to cook, and develop stronger self-discipline, shown through my arriving early to work every day.

In regard to proving to myself that I could thrive in spite of increasing responsibility, I feel that there were plenty of “activities” in my signature project that showed how I successfully accomplished this goal. Early in the summer, as I was just beginning, I was placed in roles that a typical new intern would assume; I found myself selling All-You-Can-Eat passes and fan club memberships fairly frequently. However, as the season grew on, and I earned my supervisors’ trust, I was invited to assist in more exclusive roles. These included helping out with post-game concerts, pre-game experiences, theme nights, a special research project, office work, and front desk services. Through gaining more and more responsibilities, I was able to stand out and prove my value to the Reds organization. In turn, I gained confidence in my ability to complete any task, regardless of prior background knowledge.

In regard to my hope that I would find that more people than not are willing and eager to help one another, I cannot say there was a better place to see this hope come to fruition. On a day-to-day basis, I experienced this, for example, when customer lines grew longer and longer at an All-You-Can-Eat or fan club stand. If a growing line was noticed by any of my supervisors or fellow interns, they would immediately jump in, unprompted, helping to answer questions the customers had and process their transactions as well. Continually, on a larger scale, I saw my hope come to fruition through networking with, or between, my peers. For example, one my fellow interns, who was from Michigan, wanted to head back home and work there. Through the help of a couple of my supervisors, my friend is now working his dream job, close to his family, with the Detroit Pistons. Overall, I was excited to see how eager professionals in the sport industry are to help one another on both a small and large scale.

In the end, these transformations and changes I experienced while completing my STEP Signature Project showed me two main things. First, even when I step into a new role or a situation that makes me uncomfortable, I am well prepared to take it on and excel in doing so. My internship is physical proof that even in an environment and role that made me uneasy at first, I still have plenty of opportunities to make a lasting impression on those around me. Knowing this will serve me well in the future, as this solo move to Cincinnati will almost certainly not be my last big move in the sport industry. Second, my STEP Signature Project clearly illustrated that I will always be surrounded by people who are willing to help me. What I found out this summer was that, despite someone’s rank or position, there are almost always willing to help you; they understand when you need help doing something or getting somewhere, in regard to your professional goals, because they were once in your shoes.

My step project entailed me interning at Designer Shoe Warehouse. I was a data analytics intern for the MP&A department. The internship was in Columbus (near the Easton area) and it was 12 weeks long.

This experience was definitely a wake-up call about how the real-world works. I was experienced initial shock with how the hours worked from 9am – 5pm. It was an adjustment I needed to make as my hours during college were much later like from 10am to 12am the next day. Another view that changed of mine was regarding my career. I realized how important data is for each company especially in retail and the role that big data plays in each of these companies. It drives decisions and helps make improvements from within the company as well as allows the company to sell better to the customer. I think that going forward, I really want to pursue a career in technology and data with a combination of finance as they are all the major factors in making decisions in a company.

Within my internship, I was tasked with two key projects. The first project was about how to fix the shoe sizing ranges that we put into our stores so that customers can have the size shoe that they want when they walk into the store. A survey by DSW found that the reason customers do not make a purchase when going into the store was that they are not able to find their shoe size. Using technology and the SAS tool, I was able to find outliers at the vendor level of shoe selling in sizes. Then using the outliers, I computed how much money DSW can save/make if they were able to sell the right size and the figure came out to be in the millions. My work was sent up to the VP level and I was able to get recognized for my work. This experience really taught me the value of big data in the industry.

Another big eye-opening moment for me was when I was called out for performing poorly. I was having trouble making it to the 9am time as my house was 40 min away from work and I had trouble waking up in the mornings. I quickly realized after getting called out that if I want to have a good reputation, I will need to perform flawlessly throughout the rest of the internship. I was able to get some sleep medications and I started sleeping earlier and waking up earlier to make it to my internship and I put in extra work after hours to show my dedication to the job. I think the adjustment to the time schedule was shocking initially but soon I got a hang of my daily routine.

Finally, one of the networking events that the interns were able to do at DSW is we had a breakfast session with the CEO of the company, Roger Rawlins. We were able to talk to Roger about our internship experience at DSW (which was amazing) and he shared us some of his stories and keys to success. He told us about the things he did in college and how he was able to make relationships with all the people that he worked for. He also discussed how he wants to be as a leader and what he is doing in the industry to make DSW stand out. I was able to get major key takeaways from this experience about leadership and innovation. I hope to be able to follow the footsteps of Roger Rawlins and become the CEO of a company one day.

This experience has had a major impact on me professionally and personally. Professionally, I think I have a better idea of what I want to do with my career. The eye-opening projects that I did with big data really make me want to pursue a field with data and technology more as it relates to finance. I am right now searching for internships that have a combination of finance, data, and technology and am looking at fintech as an industry to pursue. Personally, I was transforming as I got more into a routine with an everyday job. I really for the first time got to experience what it is to work from 9 to 5. It will continue being something I need to work on in college and post-graduation. Really thankful for this awesome internship experience.

My STEP Signature project was the Global Internship in London, England. While in London for two months, I had an unpaid internship with The Hive Network working 9-5 every day. 

Before I left for my internship, I had only been to Mexico and Costa Rica.  My internship was my first experience in Europe, and it was eye opening to see the difference in cultures. I feel that there are many things the United States can do to improve our everyday lifestyles, including more vacation days for employees, better public transportation, and healthier diets. However, there were certain things I did miss from America. Among one of the things I missed from America were some of the household brands. One thing you don’t often consider when going to another country is the fact that you will have to experiment with all new food brands and toiletry items. Another thing I missed about being home was being close to my family, but since I was surrounded by the excitement of London, I often was able to take my mind off it. 

Secondly, my internship allowed me to grow professionally. Also, since it was my first internship I now have an idea of what life is like working full time. I realized that I do not really enjoy marketing careers, so it’s a good thing my major is finance. I learned a lot about working and what that is like in Europe compared to the United States. One of the things that particularly surprised me about the office I worked in was the emphasis on mental health and vacation days. I think one thing American work culture could improve is how we view days off. In London, they are given a greater amount of vacation days, and I believe this increases their motivation to work harder and results in less stress. One of the things I found difficult about working in London as the only American intern was the difference in communication. While we both speak English, there were many differences in our “slang,” so that was something I had to adjust to. 

My first transformation, realizing that some change needs to take place in our country, came from my experience of simply living abroad. Through my commute to work and other areas in the UK, I realized how efficient their transportation is, and I wish we could improve that throughout the US. Also, while grocery shopping and buying lunch, it is clear that in London they eat much healthier, sustainable food, and they avoid food waste as much as possible. I think that is something that should be implemented here too. 

My internship was transformational in many aspects. Through my relationships with my bosses, I was able to learn how to appropriately interact with professional authority. They taught me many technological skills that I had not previously known. However, there were many things I did excel at, and it was impactful to have them recognize and be grateful for my work. 

These changes affected me by causing me to be more open-minded and less judgmental of those who are different. While I was never a close-minded person, I still tended to think that America was the ideal place to live. Traveling abroad made me realize there is still plenty of improvement left for our country. Additionally, my internship was impactful in giving me a channel to grow professionally. 

This experience is extremely transformational for my professional goals. I gained so much experience in marketing, research, and event planning. I can use this experience to help guide me in future positions, and it is certainly going to be something I mention in interviews.

Living abroad also helped me reach personal goals by making me become more independent. I had to cook, clean, and travel to work on my own. I feel that when I graduate I will be more ready for a full time job. 

My STEP project was entirely living in the Washington DC area and going to work everyday for Symantec as a Software Engineering intern. I worked 9-5 every day on a team of engineers working on the Norton Storage Platform (cloud-based computer backups).

This STEP project allowed me to really understand what to expect from the workplace if I leave college and enter into software engineering. Primarily, it showed me that this CSE specific domain is not the direction I would like my career to go towards and so because of my experiences doing software engineering at Symantec I changed my specialization to data engineering (still within CSE). Without my experiences through STEP there is a high probability that I would not have known that I would dislike this domain and would have continued on with it putting me in a position where I would need a 5^th year if I wanted to change specializations. Despite not liking the actual work that I did, I did fully enjoy the team I worked with/under and my experiences helped me to realize what is important in a good workplace environment. Additionally, I got to be thrust headfirst into a corporate environment, and I was given a better understanding of how things work in the real world, especially since towards the end of my time at Symantec they got bought and split by Broadcom.

My time at Symantec can really be split into two distinct categories: the first being the office environment I worked within and the second being the actual work. To address the first, everything about the people in my office was amazing all the way up to the management. My in-office mentor named Richard was an extremely fun nice guy who did his best to help me through any of the work that I couldn’t understand. In general, everyone in the office was very helpful to me and the other intern whenever we had problems with any of the work which we were assigned. My manager had a very laid-back style and because of this everyone in the office had a pretty carefree attitude but in a productive way because no one wanted him to have to be harder on us about deadlines or goofing off for short periods of time within the office. He did a really good job of making all the people who worked under him feel like they had a place in the office and that if they ever had any issues, they could come to him and talk about them. Every single week the people on my team would pick a different place to go out to lunch one day and just get to know one another which was nice especially for the new interns and getting to try tons of new food was also great. Overall, the office environment made me really think about what kind of environment I would want to come in to work for every day.

One of the relationships which I appreciated the most was with my manager’s manager named Jason. Jason was in his late 30s and is an Ohio State alumni. Jason was in the office every day but usually had his office door shut and was stuck in conference meetings with executives throughout Symantec. However, Jason did take time out of his schedule a few times throughout the summer to me and the other intern out to lunch. At these lunches I cannot express how much I learned in terms of career options and decision making. One of the main things that Jason talked about a lot was that as a 20 year old I get to basically go shopping for where I want to live the rest of my life. He talked a lot about growing up in Akron and wanting to move to a different area of the country and how he interned at three different companies in three different locations before he picked where he thought he would want to live for the rest of his life; he encouraged me to take my choice very seriously even if that meant not coming back to work for his team.

The actual work I did while I was at Symantec totally kicked my A**. Every day I dreaded coming in because the work I was doing was almost always either something I knew nothing about (I wasn’t super far along in the OSU CSE curriculum to have learned a lot of the stuff they were doing at Symantec) or I was doing some arduous and annoying task that I did know how to do. It really opened my eyes to what being a software engineer actually entailed past the face of being a field where there are a lot of well-paying jobs. Although everyone in the office was helpful where they could be (especially my mentor Richard), there is just only so much time that they could take out of their day of doing their work to help me work through the things of mine that I did not know. A lot of my day would be me looking through tutorials online or reading through example code so that I could try to do the things I was assigned to do for that day and frankly I hated it. I will say however that I probably learned more sitting in that office working through problem after problem that I did not know than I had in my entire previous two years doing CSE at Ohio State.

After doing this STEP project, I can honestly say I have a much better idea of what direction I want my career to go in and how to get there. First and foremost, this internship helped me to get a foot in the door into the CSE industry and on any resume I ever write for myself the experience will look good. Following this summer, I got offered to return to Symantec for the summer of 2020 but this time in Mountainview California (they lost their DC offices in their split with BroadCom). Being from New Jersey I had to decline the offer a lot because of the experiences I had last summer and chose to pursue other internship opportunities in DC instead. While interviewing with these other companies I knew what kind of questions to ask about their culture and management as well as the actual work they do. My internship last summer also gave me the valuable experience I needed to get hired over other students being interviewed because I had already worked in industry. Overall, my career was completely changed for the better by my experiences with my STEP project and I would 10/10 recommend every second year student get involved like I did.