Hello fellow Otterbein students! My name is Dillon Cordray and I am a senior Music and Business major interning in Colorado Springs, Colorado, this semester! Throughout this internship I will be documenting my experiences somewhat weekly on this blog to hopefully offer some insight into what it's like to not only be on a full-time internship, but to do it a thousand miles away from home, where I barely know anyone and have to adjust to living outside of a school environment. So without further ado, off we go!
The first thing I want to stress to everyone, especially those of you who are underclassmen and are required to find an internship for your degree, is to heavily consider interning outside of Central Ohio! I know it may seem really scary to some of you, but it's also an incredible opportunity to spread your wings and explore a new city! Knowing that I wouldn't find many music and business related internships around Columbus, I immediately started brainstorming about cities that I might like to end up some day. Obviously the big ones stuck out - New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles - but, like most of us, I am not made of money, and had to think how I could swing it financially. So I decided to look into areas where I had close family, which included Tampa, FL, Buffalo, NY, and Colorado Springs, CO. After narrowing my internship search down to a few cities, it was incredibly easy to find places to apply!
After using sites like Internships.com, Entertainmentcareers.net, and other data-base type websites, I decided to just broadly search for music related businesses in the areas I was interested in looking. After googling "Music and Arts in Colorado Springs," I found a link to the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, where I saw that they had a posting for a New Media/Internet Marketing Intern. I looked at the requirements and saw that I seemed to fit them nicely, and wrote my cover page and sent them my resume! Within a few days I heard back from the Communication Director who asked if I was able to interview, and after my phone interview I got the job!
Now, that might sound incredibly easy, but it took a lot of work! I applied to at least 20 different organizations throughout the month of October and November before I got the one that I wanted, but it was so worth the time! I also visited the Center for Career and Professional Development, where I met with both Ashley Strausser and Ryan Brechbill multiple times throughout the process. I highly recommend using the resources available to you (like the CCPD and relatives living far away) in order to get a really unique internship experience in a place that excites you!
The picture at the bottom of the post is one of the first pictures I took after arriving in Colorado Springs. It was incredibly scary to leave the comfortable little village of Westerville and travel over a thousand miles to this new place, but so far it has been worth it! My first day at the Fine Arts Center is tomorrow, and yes, I'm incredibly nervous. But I'm also really excited and proud of myself for making the most of my last semester in college and moving out west to explore what the working world is like! To those of you looking into internships, please think about exploring new places! It doesn't have to be as far as Colorado, it can be as close as Cincinnati! Just don't hold yourself down to one place, and use the resources that are readily available to you!
That's all I have for the first post. Thanks for reading, I hope it was somewhat helpful!
Until next time!
Dillon Cordray
Music and Business '15
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