Five months ago if someone were to have asked me what I thought I would be doing this summer I would have given them the standard Georgetown sophomore response, “I’m not sure yet, but I have lots of applications in to a couple banks, marketing firms, and NGO’s, hopefully I’ll hear back from one soon! What about you?” In my case I had applied to exactly twelve different firms, all on the east coast, ranging from microfinance to public relations positions. After countless hours spent on perfecting resumes and cover letters I entered in to that eerie phase of the application process where all you could do is patiently wait… Well, only if you consider pressing the refresh button on my Gmail account about three hundred times a day to be waiting patiently.
One would think that once you have submitted these applications that finally you would be able to refocus your efforts on the looming accounting exam or that history research paper on John Locke, but I soon discovered this was not the case at all. Yes, by the end of winter I was very good at “hammering” out cover letters and carefully tweaking the resume to fit each position, however; getting to that point took dozens of trips to the career center for one-on-one sessions and workshops.
I have always equated time in college to a handful of sand. At first it feels substantial and as if you have a lot of it, but soon it begins slipping through your fingers and almost unknowingly you look down and all that remains are pieces lodged in between the lines of your palm. Those grains that remain embedded equate to the few hours of precious productive time I had at the end of each day to take care of things that did not involve either the logistics of my summer or AKPsi pledging tasks. Following up on a constant flow of emails and forms from professors and potential summer employers dominated many hours of my day, but I knew that this “juggling” of tasks was a skill that would be incredibly important throughout my professional life.
By the time mid-March rolled around is when I began getting nervous. There was a definite lull in correspondence between the companies and myself and now I knew that all I could do at this point was wait and see what would come to fruition. Then I began to taste the bitterness that came when emails popped in to my inbox reading “Dear Jacob, Thank you for your interest in (insert company name here), but we had an extremely applicant pool for the summer position…” Roughly two-thirds of the internships I applied to had turned in to duds. Feeling down on my luck one afternoon I decided to revisit the career center’s website to check on the few applications I had outstanding when I stumbled upon the words “Win-Win Entertainment” at the top of the job offerings page.
Clicking on the post I began to read the job description and was immediately captivated. The fact that the subtitle was “Las Vegas summer Internship” definitely didn’t hurt the likelihood of me reading on. I soon learned that Jeff Civillico, a Georgetown graduate himself, had designed an internship for two students to spend their summer doing sales, marketing, networking, and promotion work for him and his company Comedy in Action.
Noticing that the deadline was only several days away I immediately began working on the application and completed all of the necessary requirements in what I would have deemed light speed. While I had applied to several internships for the summer, I had also submitted and application to a summer study abroad program through Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. If I were accepted in to the program I would have the opportunity to spend roughly six weeks in Barcelona Spain traveling throughout Europe and taking business classes under the guidance of Georgetown professors.
Have you ever had a moment in your life where everything seemed too good to be true? Life working out so perfectly that you are forced to say to your self, “what’s the catch here?” Well, that’s what I found myself saying a few weeks in to April. I had spoken on the phone with Jeff on several different occasions. With each phone call we were able to both get to know one another, and hash out exactly what both of our expectations for the summer would be. My main focus was throwing myself in to an environment where I would be surrounded by people and information that would prove insightful in the field of marketing: one of my majors. The same exact day Jeff offered me an internship position with him I also received an email stating that I had been accepted in to the study abroad program in Spain. I was nothing short of beside myself with two amazing opportunities presented in front of me. The hardest part was still to come: the decision.
As I sat in my (tiny) dorm room weighing my two options out in front of me I could not help but grin at my situation. After several hours of deliberation I ultimately decided to take what I knew would be a once in a lifetime opportunity: a marketing internship in Las Vegas. I had never been further west than Indiana and was extremely excited to see what the West would hold. Jeff’s excitement and eagerness to teach us his craft made me all the more confident in my decision. As I boarded my flight at the crack of dawn from Philadelphia International in mid-May I remember taking a deep breath and thinking to myself “here we go” as I began a new chapter in my life.
My name is Jake Rosen, I am twenty-one years of age, and I am a rising junior at Georgetown’s McDonough School of business where I plan on double majoring in Marketing and International Business. I have spent my entire life living in Philadelphia, and of course D.C., during the school year. Until this past October I had been very involved in the sport of rowing when a series of events forced me to reconsider my athletic commitment and refocus my efforts elsewhere. At Georgetown I am involved in several different business oriented extracurriculars, those being the professional business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi and GUSIF (Georgetown University Investment Fund). Upon graduation I hope to find employment in the field of advertising or microfinance.
GEMA (Georgetown Entertainment Media Alliance) exists to elevate Georgetown’s profile in the entertainment and media community, by strengthening the ties between the University and its alumni and by developing relevant programs and resources for both alumni and current Georgetown students. GEMA currently has hubs in Washington DC, New York, and Los Angeles.
Jeff Civillico is working with University officials to develop GEMA Las Vegas! Jake Rosen is one of four entertainment-marketing interns for Jeff Civillico, Inc. this summer.
Learn more about Jeff’s summer internship in Las Vegas.
Learn more about GEMA: http://www.gema-hoyas.org.
