As stated in my last journal entry, my role within The H Group is a graphic designer, working and creating a new advertising campaign and logos for one of their brands, Go PowerBike. My supervisor within my internship is Jeremy Markovitch, who is also the Chief Technical Officer for the company. But before even working with The H Group, my journey to receiving an internship was definitely not an easy process.

Before finding out about The H Group, I was applying for other internships left and right using the COMD Internship Coordination site here on OpenLab. I either didn’t hear back from the companies I applied for, or just got rejected by them. I was far from ready to quit, as I found a website titled “internships.com,” where they list a multitude of internship applications of any kind. Luckily, they had multiple design-related intern openings for the Summer in NYC, so I applied for a couple of spots that interested me, as well as fitting the job’s qualifications. There, I found out about The H Group, where they had just posted a Graphic Design intern opening by the time I applied for it (May 17, 2018).

Merely 12 hours after applying for it, I received an email from one of the company’s employees (who would then turn out to be my aforementioned supervisor), Jeremy, asking me if I would be available for an interview within the next week. I, of course, was excited, as I finally got the chance to do an interview with a potential client after months of rejection, and replied saying that I would be available the following Tuesday (May 22) at 1 PM. Tuesday came and went, as I dressed professionally and entered The H Group for the first time, and even arrived at least a half hour before my interview was scheduled to begin. After waiting for about 15 minutes, I met Jeremy, and he, along with his boss, sat down with me and began the interview. Both of them asked me what my skills are, what software I use, and what days I am available for work. I even showed them previous work I have done related to graphic design during the years I’ve been at City Tech, which included a typographical poster, an autobiographical mock-up magazine, and a restaurant guide. I also asked them if it would be possible to use this internship as credit-bearing, and luckily, they were willing to comply. They also stated the goals they want to accomplish on rebranding Go PowerBike, and I was ready to do the job for them! Right before I left the interview, Jeremy asked me to email my ideas on how to rebrand Go PowerBike and what I can to do to make it better, and I did just that right when I got home. Both of them seemed very interested in working with me, and I was very hopeful I would land the internship.

After the interview wrapped up and sending my email to Jeremy, I waited for about a week to hear back from the company. Knowing that my Internship class would start within the next week and I didn’t want to come into the class empty-handed, I would anxiously email Jeremy asking him if I can start working, and he emailed me back stating that he would call me to talk about my work hours again. Unfortunately, he would be too busy with other work-related duties that he couldn’t call me. During this time, I applied for other internships at internships.com, hoping that I would hear back from them and be able to conduct more interviews. It was up until the day before class started, and I didn’t hear back from the other internships that I ended up emailing Jeremy again,  reminding him about the internship and if I can use for credit-bearing purposes. He said yes, signed the Internship Agreement form, and I finally started working on June 6, 2018 (2 days after the Internship class started).

And that was how I secured my internship at The H Group. It was a very long, tedious, and anxious process, but with constant communication between me and my supervisor and weeks worth of waiting, it was definitely worth it, and I’m very glad to be working for them.