During my time at BGSU, I was able to develope my personal attributes and apply my academic studies to the real world. Personally, I became a more outgoing person and willing to work with large groups of people. Prior to this internship, I was hesitant to speak up and talk with strangers. Working at SOAR taught me to open up and be comfortable with my surroundings. Everyone is nervous the first time they speak in front of strangers, but addressing them with professionalism and confidance leads to a more relaxing and interesting conversation in the end for both parties. Additionally, working this internsthip helped me become more efficient working under pressure. Theby would set deadlines for us to hit to accomplish our assigned tasks by. This helped me to type faster, to search for key words or phrases when looking something up, and to organize myself to stay focused and not pay attention to the distractions surrounding us (Renovations to the Football Stadium). Academically, I was able to apply what I learned in CIS 111 by using Excel and Word efficiently in the workplace. This included creating charts, importing data, and organizing information so it was in alphabetical order. Another academic topic I applied in the workforce is my knowledge on Title IX and Collective Barganing Agreements. There were times throughout the semester when Theby asked us to give our input on specific topics ongoing in sports and what the university could do differently to address the problem without violating any Federal laws in the process. Learning about these topics in school helped me to hold a conversation with Theby and to teach the other interns about how these laws affect the way we work in sports. It was beneficial to me to have this knowledge prior to this internship as it gave me a competitive advantage over my co-workers.
Throughout this internship, the communication with my supervisor was excellent and extremely helpful. David always had a list of activities prepared and ready for me to work on. David's office was right next door to mine and his door was almost always open for me to come in and ask questions on how to improve my work. Eventhough David was out of the office for most of the month of June, he still stayed in contact with us via email or text to ensure that we were keeping up on SOAR, our marketing plans, and side-jobs around the office. I felt that having a boss as personable as David was is key to the success of the interns who work for him. He is very understanding of prior commitments and was willing to work around my schedule to accomodate these requests. I enjoyed working for David and would be more than willing to work for him again in the future. Partaking in this internship has helped me to realize that I really enjoy working in sports. I have always aspired to one day own or manage my own sports team, and I will work hard on my way through the sporting industry to try and acheive this goal. For a starting career, I have learned that I do not wsh to work in ticketing as I need to spend time outside the office to remain involved and focused on my assigned tasks. I also believe that this internship has turned my focus to wanting to start out as an Assistant Director of Marketing and Promotions, or as an Assistant Athletic Director at a small school/university. I believe this path would be best for me so that I could learn from an experinced director on how to handle adverse situations and to better address the health and financial stability of a schools sporting budget. The starting pay for these jobs may not be the greatest, but with hard work and dedication, promotions to higher paying jobs will come. This internship taught me that success will come with patience, all you need is for the right opportunity to open up to one day find your dream job. If another student was considering taking a position inside the Bowling Green Athletics Department, I would tell them to be preparred for some long hours at the office during the school year. Summer is by far the easiest time of the year as there are no sports in session. You are able to relax a bit more then usual and you will spend the majority of your time working on preparing for the upcoming sports season. Hours throughout the summer run on 30-40 hour work weeks and are vastly centered around meetings and improving promotional activities from the previous sports season. The biggestt project that you will take on is fulffilling shipping requests and ensuring that the team marketing plans have been updated and finalized. Once school is back in session, Assistant Directors and Directors of Sports Marketing are expected to work every home athletic event. This mean that you could work anywhere from 40-80 hours a week depending on the number of athletic events scheduled. Additionally, BGSU pays it staff by a salary so there is no overtime payment gained from working these long hours every week. If you have a love for sports, the opportunity for advancement and reward is there for you to succeed in. Patience is key and you will have days with nothing to do. Not everything comes easy in this job and you must work hard to create the best marketing and promotion plan you can to help the university meet its season attendance goals.. Rememer to ask tons questions and listen to feedback as this is how you can learn from your failed promotions too create a more successful plan in the future.
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