My Semester at LACD

By: Adam Beasley

When my roommate first forwarded me the newsletter that advertised the LACD internship I was interested in the position but with everything going on in my life at the time, it fell to the wayside in my mind and I forgot about it. Then, on the night that the application was due, he asked me if I had ever applied to "that internship" and naturally I said no and checked when it was due. When I saw that it was due that night by midnight, I kind of just gave up hope on getting it and decided not to apply. My resume and cover letter weren't close to being ready and so I just went about my night. An hour or so later, I was still thinking about whether or not I should apply and luckily I sat down at the computer, and for the next couple of hours I worked out my resume and wrote my cover letter before submitting it around 11pm that night. It was one of the best decisions I have made at Purdue.

I have learned a lot at Purdue from classes and professors but the LACD internship gave me something that none of that other stuff could, the experience of actually doing work and seeing it put out into the world. With classes, you do all of this work but you never really know how it would be received in the work world; it just gets a grade and then it gets thrown in with all the other papers from school. With the LACD internship, I was pushed to do work and do it well. It forced me into a situation where others were relying on me to get the work done. If I didn't do it or do it well, the rest of the team would have suffered and I would have eight, extremely driven women glaring me down. Haha...And that's not what I want.

I have learned so much from the LACD team: Lisa Snodgrass, Kate Agathon, Sidonna Masterson and the five other interns. Lisa is the true driving force behind LACD. Without her, events like Career Week would not be possible. She is the one who is always there putting in the time and pushing us all to do our best work. She had confidence in me and because of that I was able to develop more confident work for myself. Kate is the one who has helped develop us all into young professionals. I feel like I could always go to her if I had a question and she would know what to do or at least how to approach the issue. The LACD team is really going to miss her influence next semester. Sidonna helps with just about everything. She sets everything up and she's also the one you go to if you are stressing out. Her presence is what keeps the office calm and collected. Thanks to all three of you.  

Now, a shout-out to the other interns!
-Stephanie: Career Week would not have ran anywhere close to as smoothly as it did without you. I feel like you made it so easy to get everything done. We dominated that focus group. Those three students didn't know what hit them...haha.
-Angie: Your eye for design is only something I could dream about having. Thanks for all the help with the website and handbook. It's almost finished!
-Meg: You are a rock star! Seriously, don't forget it. I feel like we would have had only half the amount of sponsorships during Career Week without you.
-Caitlin: Out of anyone at LACD, you always have the best attitude when it comes to work. You have a great knack for marketing and not a single person makes a better plan than you!
-Christina: Oh, Christina... You definitely liven up the office. You always surprise me with the amount of work you put in. I expect one or two pages of work and you give me four or five. You can always count on a professional writer...

Thanks you all again for a great semester. Now let's finish up this this website!