Employer
Martin Engineering
Internship Title
Marketing Intern
What were your duties?
At Martin I created marketing materials for both internal and external needs of the company while learning valuable skills in graphic design and marketing. I helped design t-shirts for company charity and customer events, logos and branding concepts for products/extensions, infographics, and community posters for the office. I also worked on advertisements for trade publications, produced videos for the company website detailing products and services, and spent a lot of time editing photos of products. Along with all of this, I was entrusted with unique jobs and organizational work to help both the marketing department and other departments at Martin.
What did you most enjoy about your internship?
I came into the internship not knowing what to expect. By the end of the summer, I had met so many really great people and made some good friends. It made the summer so rewarding for me. Through the intern experience I got to see how a global company is really made up of the quality and character of the people who work there, whether that be the people working in the marketing department or the people assembling the equipment on the assembly line. Martin is very serious about building a community of employees who are successful on the job and feel purpose in their work every day.
What was the most difficult aspect of the internship?
The mining industry is not an industry that most people know about. I barely knew anything going into my internship. It took a great deal of openness and learning to become knowledgeable about the equipment Martin manufactures and what purpose they serve. In order to fully communicate and market the brand, you really have to be a sponge and soak up information. I learned all about conveyors, belt cleaners, different types of quarries and materials, and many more things. It proved to be a bit difficult to stay interested at times, but it was great to expand my knowledge into such a vital part of our country's industry.
How did your experience at ILLINOIS and in the College of Media prepare you for your internship?
The University of Illinois and, more specifically, the College of Media helped prepare me for my internship by laying the groundwork for how marketing and advertising a business works. From the terminology all the way to the extent of the understanding of the consumer and representing a brand - all of these things I learned in class gave me a platform to learn even more on the job.
How has your internship prepared you for a career?
My time at Martin Engineering was short but extremely beneficial to my career path. Like I mentioned before, I got to see how a global company operates on a very microscopic level - all the way down to the people who make the very things that the company sells. In addition, I learned what it was like to work in marketing. The employees I collaborated with were handling multiple things at a time and keeping themselves organized with deadlines and meetings. I got to experience what it was like to sit at a desk from 9 to 5 and get work done which is something that will be great practice for my career after college.
What recommendations do you have for other students about doing an internship?
Be open to any opportunity. Just because it doesn't seem as interesting, don't dismiss it. Like my experience, it could prove to be very rewarding and you can learn a lot about your career path, your industry, people, and just the world in general.