“Eli, what are you going to do once you graduate?” was a common question I faced in my last quarters at UCLA. And this question in particular spurred an intensive look at my career choices postgraduation and led me to research careers pertaining to marketing. This experience, although challenging, has opened many doors for me and taught me to take an initiative toward finding a career path.
First, I took a career-development class taught by Professor Sandra Caruso, who put together a prolific list of guest speakers. Among them was Andy Cohen, an International Creative Management executive talent agent.
After hearing how these guest speakers began their career, I learned that obtaining an internship was the most valuable aspect in establishing a career in most fields.
Cohen stressed the importance of an internship and how he climbed the ladder to reach the top.
“In a phone conversation, there is usually three people on the line: the agent, the client and the agent’s intern,” he said.
His statement glorified the significance of the learning experience one may obtain at such a low-level position that teaches “the business.”
One of the assignments in my career-development class was to achieve a goal by the end of the quarter. I set a goal to find an internship that was worthwhile. I took the initiative to obtain an internship in a marketing-related field that interested me: public relations.
As I was surfing the Web and conducting searches on Google, I came across blogs of a publicity guru named Ronn Torossian and found most of his thoughts insightful.
Torossian is the CEO of the 5W Public Relations company in New York and I wondered if it would be possible to intern at his company.
Luckily, after searching his company’s Web site, I found he had an office in Los Angeles. I then obtained information on 5W’s L.A. office and called to inquire about their internship program.
I quickly wrote a draft of my resume and headed over to the UCLA Career Center where my resume went through a makeover.
After making all the changes to my resume, I sent it off to 5W and got a call back for an interview. I went through my interview, got the internship, and scheduled my hours with one of the publicists.
Since then, I have been interning at the L.A. office. The experience is priceless. I have learned different strategies and methods on how to be an effective publicist that I could not even imagine learning elsewhere. With the amount of my hands-on assignments, I felt I was one of the publicists.
Overall, my experience at 5W has taught me skills I can take to all tables of business and apply in one shape or another.
I urge all students to take the initiative to find internships in their desired career fields as I feel that my experience has defined my career for life.
Eli Natan is a recent UCLA graduate and plans to enter a career in public relations.