By: Renee Radzom, DePaul University graduate, former University Internship Program (UIP) assistant
DePaul Diaries is a day-in-the-life blog series written by DePaul students. The series unveils DePaulians’ experiences as interns in their field of choice. Students share their honest thoughts about their experiences, what they learned as an intern and advice for students who are interested in the same field.
Eileen Peltier, an Economics major, decided to pursue her interest in the music industry and complete an internship at Music Dealers, LLC. Eileen found her internship by searching online for music-related opportunities.
At Music Dealers, Eileen’s main responsibility is to find unsigned artists whom she thinks would do well with a music license. She then connects with the artists to see if they would like to pursue a contract with Music Dealers.
“I love when I get to offer opportunities to a band that I’ve just found and am really passionate about. It’s also been great to meet like-minded people,” Eileen said.
Eileen gets a lot of freedom to pursue artists she likes and believes would do well with the added exposure the company could provide.
With all of this hands-on experience, Eileen said she’s learned quite a few new skills, while having the opportunity to meet and work with a large variety of people. She’s also witnessed how different aspects of a company need to work together to achieve goals. For instance, cooperation and being a team player are especially important in music licensing and the overall movie/music/advertising industry.
Of course, Eileen didn’t want to limit her experience and education to just her internship – she also took UIP 252: Creativity as a Change Agent in the Workplace. The class really brought together the concepts she was learning on-the-job, like collaboration and effective marketing. Also, since she took the class online, she really enjoyed the flexibility of simply logging in to work on assignments.
“The class really helped me articulate what I’m looking for in a creative career. I’m glad I had the opportunity to write about what I’m looking for in an organization; I think it will help me when searching for other opportunities after this internship,” Eileen said.
With all of these great experiences laid out for her, Eileen said she didn’t even think about the fact that she wasn’t paid for her internship. She said, “It allowed me to really see if I was passionate about what I was doing.”
As a final statement, Eileen shares this piece of advice for future interns: “Ask questions and remember that you can learn from anyone, not just the people in your department or your industry.”
Want to learn more about DePaul’s University Internship Program? Check it out, here, or send inquiries to UIP@depaul.edu. Need help finding an internship? Visit depaul.joinhandshake.com, or come into DePaul’s Career Center to meet with an advisor.