Ben, ‘11

November 11, 2009

I have had to finally face the fact that I have to grow up. Not that I think I’m horrendously immature right now, but I can’t keep running around, pretending that I will never graduate and thinking that I don’t need to look for a job. As hard as it may be for me to believe, I am on the second half of my college career with the end rapidly approaching. With that in mind and my resume in hand, I began searching for an internship for the coming summer. You may ask, “But Ben, isn’t summer seven months away still?” and the answer would be yes. However, it’s a long process and I’m doing my best to look at all of my options. Ideally, I would return home to Wisconsin for the summer. I’ve been away doing mathematics research here at UR and also studying abroad for my past two summers and haven’t seen my family or friends very much. However, an opportunity came up for me to interview for a summer sales internship with Altria (parent company of Phillip Morris). I went to the first interview and it went so well that I was invited to a second round of interviews. That happened today and that also went incredibly well. So, now I need to wait and see if they invite me back for the next stage. Even though this internship would require me to stay in Richmond, it is a good opportunity and I need to at least look into it.

Also keeping me busy for this week were a test, a presentation, a symposium lecture, and numerous other things. One fun thing was the creation of a video for the University of Richmond’s Speech Center. There is an annual Speech Center Administrators Conference and my boss asked me to create a video telling why the conference should be held at UR in 2011. Since I’ve done these types of projects numerous times, I obliged. It was a fair amount of work, but I think that it turned out well. I’m quite proud of the fact that I was asked to create a video proposal for a nationwide conference. It was even cooler when I was asked to attend the conference in Chicago this weekend to introduce the video. However, I had prior plans, which are also pretty cool. You’ll see what I’m talking about when you come back next week. For your entertainment, I’ve posted my video below:

The Speech Center Conference video proposal I made

So, I’m clearly not sitting around playing kickball at recess and eating PB&J for lunch everyday. Instead, I’m having daily meetings, job interviews, lectures, and numerous group projects. Peter Pan has flown me back from Neverland and dropped me in the middle of reality. I’ve come to face that fact and view myself as much more of an adult than I would like, but I’m slowly starting to realize that that’s not really a bad thing… right?

Quote of the Week: “I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temorarily out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.” -Mitch Hedberg
YouTube Video of the Week:

Street Art