Intern and Student Life During a Pandemic

GUEST BLOGGER: ELISABETH TORRES, COLLEGE HILL MARKETING INTERN + STUDENT AT WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY, PULLMAN, WA

Hi everyone, Lizzie here again! I'm back to talk about how I'm handling juggling my senior year of college and my internship during the pandemic and a totally unexpected period of "sheltering-in-place." This is not how any of us saw our last couple months of the school year going, that's for sure!

This is my senior year at Washington State University, where I’m majoring in Strategic Communication with an emphasis in Public Relations.

I'm also a marketing intern here at College Hill. My marketing internship has been one of my best work experiences yet!

I'm one of four marketing interns this semester and we were paired up on rebranding projects for real companies that are struggling to remain relevant or have fallen out of the public eye, have some PR issues, etc. We came up with a hypothetical marketing plan for our chosen company all semester long - researching, writing, analyzing, reimagining and working alongside a design intern on visual components. We're a few weeks away from our final presentations, where we unveil our marketing reports and visual presentations to a group of judges comprised of WSU professors and local entrepreneurs. 

The company my partner and I chose to rebrand (hypothetically, for the internship assignment) was Juicy Couture. The project was fitting for the direction my partner and I both want to take career-wise! We also thought this company would fit us best because we both like fashion and are interested in a company that is very nostalgic and could be very trendy with our current generation.

Having an internship during my college experience has been so amazing. I get to practice my skills, learn new ones and find new experiences that I never thought I would end up liking. I think internships are great ways to explore and find out what really interests you.

Since the coronavirus pandemic started, however, both my college experience and my internship experience have been greatly impacted.

Up until the shelter-in-place orders came down and campuses and offices closed, we were meeting in-person three times a week for the internship. While our marketing internship manager met with us remotely from Seattle, we were able to be in person with our fellow interns and teammates, which made the process much easier. Once we got to the stage where we were interacting with the design interns to create visuals, meeting in person would have helped us through the process. 

Additionally, this pandemic has really affected my school work. This semester, I am taking seven classes on top of my ten-hour-a-week internship. It's a time-consuming (but also very productive) schedule that helped me stay focused on my week, avoiding procrastination.

Taking classes online is tough because I spend long periods of time on my laptop and phone for homework and meetings. I have had more headaches and neck pain from screen time and bad posture.

One way that I try to focus and stay positive as a student during this pandemic is exercising. I like to use the Workout for Women app. It's a great app because it helps me stay active and it times the workouts for me. It could be 4-minute arms or a 10-minute ab workout - quick, but so helpful.

I also like to find fun recipes and cook food with my mom. I recently found this awesome app called Supercook, where you can add all the ingredients you have in your pantry or around your kitchen. You type it into the app, it searches, then it shows you different recipes that use the ingredients you currently have in your home. This app is the perfect resource for making the most of what you have!