As I woke up on the morning of June 6th, I knew that the moment I looked in my e-mail I would be reading whether or not I received my dream internship. My heart was racing. My hands were clammy.  I opened up my emails and there -in my inbox- was the email I had been waiting for: an offer to work for Nike in Berlin, Germany as their Women’s Brand Intern. I screeched with excitement. I couldn’t believe that my dreams were coming true.

Excited but panicked, I somehow managed to find a place to stay and packed my life into two suitcases.  Three weeks after I received the offer, I was sitting on a plane headed to the big city of Berlin. I was set to start the first of July.

I will never forget the feeling I had as I stepped into the office for the first time. I received my big kid desk, my laptop, and my phone. Within the first hour, I had meetings scheduled and things to do. I started my adventure diving into a photoshoot that was taking place three days after my first day on the job. I was in charge of product, making sure we received every piece we needed for the photo-shoot with well-known bloggers and athletes. In addition to the photo-shoot, we had an event for smaller bloggers to test out our new bras and get bra educated. For it all, I had to make sure everything for everyone was at the photoshoot. That was just the start of my crazy seven months as  a Women’s Brand Intern at Nike.

A photo from the first photoshoot I worked on!

My internship required a wide array of skills (honed as an SCC major): weekly class uploads and analytical reports about our Nike Studio in Berlin, managing the schedules of our Trainers for the Studio, weekly highlights from our territory with anything that revolved around Women and Nike. I was in charge of product distribution to our trainers, and was given the opportunity to create recaps for events such as the Olympics. Heading a market research project, I dove deep into our Nike Studio Consumer. The research project included creating a questionnaire that was distributed to our studio classes, and afterwards I was able to analyze the results. I created a slide deck of the results and presented it to our team.  The presentation included my findings as well as my suggestions for the studio moving forward.

My most treasured memory from this internship abroad was working at an event called Bread&&Butter (B&&B). B&&B is a fashion trade show Nike participated in this past fall. Nike put on a HIT (High Intensity) and Run event, where participants could either run on a treadmill at different intervals or take part in a High Intensity workout simultaneously. To put on this event, we had our top trainers from London and Berlin take part, and even had a celebrity guest stop by. My job was to care for the trainers and make sure everything for them was going as planned. The response to the event was overwhelmingly positive, and by the end we had over 500 people participate in our HIT and Run sessions over the course of the entire weekend. To see the way the participants faces lit up when they were doing the event, and see how much they grew with Nike was my favorite part about the entire weekend, and is why it became such a treasured memory for me.

A photo with me and the other intern at the B&&B Event

Of course, the internship wasn’t all just fun and games. I struggled through some moments, and learned a lot about working in the real world. In a fast-paced business, especially in marketing, you are bound to work endless overtime hours. Understanding when to cut yourself off from work is a skill that is hard to grasp. Eventually, I learned to appreciate work/life balance.  The internship was my first time ever in a full-time job, and adjusting from the student life to working full-time was not easy. It took some time to find my flow and find the way that works best for me to be successful in my job. Within a few months, I was able to get in a groove and I started to love working full-time.

As I walked out of the office on my last day, I couldn’t help but think how much of a whirlwind the past seven months had been working for Nike in Berlin. I realized how much I learned not only about myself, but about how much I love marketing and working for Nike. I got a taste of what it is like to be in the workforce and learned that it isn’t always going to be a piece of cake. Marketing has it’s ups and downs, but the thrill of being able to be a part of such amazing events and projects makes the long hours worth it in the end. Working for such an incredible company that is so fun and upbeat is what made the seven months so worth it. I would not change my experience for the world, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have had the opportunity to work for my dream company.