CommArts Student Dareen Abukwaik Shares Her Internship Experience  

To get a better grasp of what they want in a career, students can work in a professional environment within an internship position.

Dareen Abukwaik, a junior journalism student, worked as a copywriting intern with Kraus Marketing last summer. According to their LinkedIn page, Kraus Marketing is a "full-service marketing agency specializing in branding, web design & development, and strategic digital marketing campaigns."

As a copywriting intern, Abukwaik's tasks involved writing persuasive marketing and promotional materials to motivate people to take action. She also focused on search engine optimization, or SEO, which is a set of technical and content practices to help align a webpage with a search engine's algorithm and boost its position on the search results page.

Abukwaik said she gained and improved upon a variety of skills during her time at Kraus Marketing.

"During my internship, I learned a lot about communication, professionalism, teamwork, SEO, and how marketing works," she said. "I also focused a lot more on how to adapt my writing style."

Abukwaik added that her internship helped her gain more professional experience, transfer the skills she learned in class to the workplace, and better understand what direction to take post-graduation.

"I'm not entirely sure of what I want to do post-graduation, but having an internship helped me understand more about the workplace environment and how to adjust going from school to work," she said. "I also gained more knowledge about marketing and things that I didn't know I was interested in."

When it comes to getting an internship, Abukwaik gave students four tips: never give up, every "no" leads to a "yes," it is never too late to start applying, and visit the Career Center. 

"Your career advisor could help you out with your resume, connect you with people, and look over your cover letter," Abukwaik said. "The Career Center always has a lot of events, like the Career Fair, and they're a great resource on campus to help you out."

Students should visit Compass to schedule an appointment with their career advisors to discuss internships. They should also utilize Handshake to discover internship opportunities.

Categories: The Career Center