During my Spring 2025 semester at ODU, I worked as a Marketing and Communications Intern for ODU's Office of Counseling Services. A Mellon Foundation Humanities Internship Stipend supported my internship.

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As the Marketing & Communications Intern, I worked to create engaging content for social media, design and launch our monthly newsletter, assist with website maintenance, manage television advertisements and compile data for an end-of-year report.

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Work-Based Learning Projects:

• Monthly Newsletter: I created the template for the OCS newsletter and outlined the channels for how it would be sent out monthly to student and faculty emails, website, and TV screens in residence halls and recreation areas. I learned how to send out student and faculty emails and how to work within ODU brand’s fonts and colors.

• End-of-Semester Report: I gathered data from the OCS website and Instagram, created infographics, and turned this information into a report with suggestions for how to improve awareness of our services. I learned how to use Instagram analytics.

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• Instagram Posts: I designed Instagram posts with Canva to promote our services.

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Internship Reflection:
It is important to state that I chose to work as the Marketing & Communications intern for ODU's Office of Counseling Services (OCS) despite having a concentration in Technical Writing and just coming off the heels of interning at Liebherr Manufacturing because I was at a crossroads: Do I continue to pursue my concentration in Technical Writing and a STEM-focused career, or do I tap into old passions of content creation and marketing? Since I have not directly taken any classes for this type of field but have held a marketing position in 2021, the answer would be how I felt at the end of this semester after having experienced two very different professional fields, and could have altered the rest of my college education.
Well, I can say with confidence now that working in marketing has affirmed my initial decision to concentrate in technical writing, but that does not make my experience this semester interning for OCS any less fulfilling.
Firstly, it solidified my current education plans, which is extremely valuable when you are twenty-two years old and do not really know what it entails to be a technical writer or communications professional. Secondly, it affirms my desire to find an industry that I feel super passionate about and proud to be a part of. Even though I do not want to pursue marketing further, it was super fulfilling to be a part of a team working for a cause I believe in—increasing mental health awareness and support for our ODU community. While I directly enjoyed the work I was doing at Liebherr, I felt super ashamed to be working for a mining company as it does not align with my values. Now that I have felt both opposite ends of the spectrum, I cannot just go back and force cognitive dissonance on myself to believe in one type of future while actively upholding a system that is at odds with said future.

With this in mind, I am going to continue my double major in English and Spanish with a concentration in technical writing. However, my next internship endeavor will be more carefully selected to align with my values and passion, not just whatever company gets back to me first.

Now focusing back on my most recent internship, I found that the most surprising element of marketing and communications is just how pop culture savvy one has to be to succeed in this field. When I was a marketing and communications intern for Isle of Wight County my senior year of high school in 2021, the focus was more so on photography, video production, and reports, rather than handling social media. Now, only four years later in 2025, it seems that a lot of companies want the marketing person to be the brand itself. Not only do you have to already spend hours on social media a day to know what trend is blowing up, you need to quickly commodify it and use your own image alongside the company to promote it, especially since the rise of short-form content like TikToks and Reels. Since I did not spend hours a day on social media or feel comfortable with being in videos to promote OCS, it was stressful to have to navigate that line of how I thought marketing would be versus the reality of interning in 2025.


Career Exploration
My internship helped me see my major and career goals more clearly by giving me real-world experience in a field I’ve been curious about but wasn’t sure I belonged in. After spending the semester working in marketing and communications, I realized that while I enjoy aspects of content creation, I ultimately want to pursue work that directly aligns with my technical writing background and personal values.

What’s next for me professionally is being more intentional about where I apply for internships and jobs. I plan to look for organizations that align more closely with both my technical writing concentration and my values. This internship showed me how important that alignment is for my overall job satisfaction and sense of purpose.

Integrated Learning
Studying the humanities has trained me to think critically about how language and visuals shape meaning. In content creation, that means making intentional rhetorical choices that speak to specific audiences. If the goal is to drive action, whether that’s visiting a resource, sharing a post, or attending an event, you have to know how to meet people where they are. This internship pushed me to think not just about how to communicate effectively, but how to do so through visual storytelling that aligns with people’s values and attention spans.

This internship also revealed how marketing today isn’t just about showing up online, it’s really about living online. Social media moves fast, and I realized how much time and awareness it takes to keep up with trends, algorithms, and tone shifts in real time. That constant motion deepened my understanding of marketing and communications communication as something deeply embedded in culture, timing, and platform-specific nuances.

Professional Communication
To act as a professional in this field means understanding your audience and being able to adapt your message accordingly. It also means maintaining a consistent tone and visual identity across platforms, especially when representing a university office. You have to be detail-oriented, timely, and responsive while still being creative.
My analytical and communication skills were a huge asset during the internship. Whether I was designing graphics, drafting emails, or preparing our end-of-semester report, I used my ability to synthesize information and present it clearly. I also practiced ethical reasoning by considering how our messaging might affect students' perceptions of mental health support and ensuring we communicated with care.

Final Thoughts
Don't be afraid to explore internships that aren't directly tied to your major–doing so helped me stop second-guessing my career path and made me more confident in my choices. Even if you find out something isn’t for you, that experience still provides clarity. Peace of mind matters, and now I can focus more intentionally on a field I’ll genuinely enjoy.