Meet the Team: The Intern Class of 2017
One thing you might not know about Ayers is that our Marketing department has a strong internship program. This month we’re saying goodbye to three interns from MSU who have been invaluable to the department, so this seems like a good time to highlight them.
Emma Barterian is a senior majoring in advertising, and our most senior intern, having started last summer. Within her first few days we asked her to make a costume out of yard signs for our Marketing Director Cathy, and to lip sync on camera with the rest of the department for a Foundation Supportworks video project. She has had an amazing attitude from day one and even today happily jumped in setting appointments to help our appointment center, which has been extremely busy due to the recent rain.
Emma is on the job market and has already had an interview for a full time position post-graduation. She hopes to land a marketing or advertising position and eventually move to Chicago. She’ll miss hanging out with the marketing team as we send each other links to funny dog videos, and says that she learned a lot about basements to the point that when she goes to friends’ houses she constantly looks for cracks or water damage. It’s a curse, Emma.
Brittany Gutman is our other soon to be graduate and has been with us since November. She is also an advertising major and is known around the office for being startlingly quick whenever we have to give her one of our less glamorous projects, like putting together bags for presentations or stuffing envelopes. We’re lucky to be keeping her for at least a part of the summer as she enters the job market in search of a position in digital marketing.
Brittany also remarked that she now knows more about basements than she could have ever imagined, and has appreciated learning about creating relevant and effective content for the company. It’s the first internship she’s had where she has gotten to conceptualize and write her own blog topics.
Finally, we’re losing Elena Behrman, who, as a junior, is the baby of the department. An advertising major with a public relations minor, she started in September and has been a go-getter from the beginning. Putting her prior broadcasting experience to work, Elena has filmed jobsites and provided voiceover recording for projects in addition to creating online content. She has also been a great addition to our trade show team, manning our booth at events around the state. Fun fact: we once got blocked into a driveway and spent 45 minutes taking Buzzfeed quizzes and trying to win free Chipotle.
Literally as I was writing this, Elena found out that she was chosen for a summer internship at a marketing firm in Chicago! After she graduates next year, she hopes to move to Chicago or another big city and get a job in media planning. She says her time at Ayers has helped her learn how much work goes into developing and enhancing a brand and she’s enjoyed getting to see so many aspects of the business. She’ll also miss the office potlucks.
I’ve had the pleasure of training all three of these talented ladies from their first day, and it’s been great watching them “get it” and really make projects their own. Through finals and job hunting and everything else happening in their lives, they show up ready to work with great attitudes and they even let me take group photos with no notice, like the one below. Thank you for all of your hard work - we’re going to miss you greatly.
