Brandon Strausser '16 - SPIRE Performance

Name: Brandon Strausser

Class Year: 2016

Major: Health Promotion & Fitness

Organization Name: SPIRE Performance at SPIRE Institute

Location: Geneva, Ohio

Internship Responsibilities:  During the spring semester, I had the wonderful opportunity to intern as a performance coach with SPIRE Performance at SPIRE Institute, which is an Olympic Training Site located right here in Northeast Ohio!  As an intern, I was responsible for leading our academy athletes from all over the world, local high schools, colleges, and youth athletes through movement and performance tests, warm-ups, speed and power teirs, strength training regimens, and recovery sessions.  I am also very humbled to have worked with Olympic caliber athletes, Wounded Warriors, and professional dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy from "Dancing with the Stars."  Along with this internship, I was given the opportunity to volunteer with Nike as a performance coach at their high school football combine in Massillon, Ohio.

What I Learned:  I have learned a great deal from working alongside the coaches, athletic trainer, and physical therapist here at my internship.  In fact, I could probably write 10 pages worth of information, however, I will not be doing that for the sake of the readers.  Some of the things that I have learned are how to analyze an individual’s biomechanics and approach their weaknesses through corrective exercises, understanding that some exercises are not meant for everyone, and to not be afraid to make mistakes, which has helped me to become a better coach and leader.  Probably the most important and biggest take-away from this internship is that I have entered into a field that I absolutely love.  The saying is true: "If you love what you do, you will never work a day in your life," and this internship has proven that to be true!

Adam Piccin '15 - Lewis Center Business Association

Name:  Adam Piccin

Class Year:  December 2015

Majors:  Public Relations and Health Communication

Internship Organization:  Lewis Center Business Association

Internship Location:  Lewis Center, Ohio

Photo: This is a screenshot of a news segment I was featured on for Good Day Columbus the morning of the LC Summer Bash & Fireworks. I was interviewed by CW Star and ABC 6/Fox News reporter Alissa Henry.

Intern Responsibilities:

I reached out to the Lewis Center Business Association (LCBA) to assist with the association’s premier July 4 event, the LC Summer Bash & Fireworks.  I met with LCBA executives and proposed a five-part business plan to increase event ticket sales by leading public relations and marketing efforts for the festival, fireworks and concert featuring bands New Hollow, Liberty Deep Down, and headliner, multi-platinum recording artist Gavin DeGraw. Once hired on, I recruited, hired and supervised a team of more than 10 interns to promote the event and executed set strategies and tactics. I delegated tasks to interns, monitored social media content and responses, worked band meet  greets, gained experience working with the media via interviews for news pieces and also on television live with Good Day Columbus. At the actual event, I assisted bands individually, utilized crisis communication techniques and oversaw interns.

What I Learned:

I learned more about management in general and my own personal managerial style. I also realized that entertainment public relations is definitely a field I am interested in pursuing after graduation. I had an absolute blast working for the LCBA.

Ashley Junglas '16 - Ohio National Financial Services

Ashley Jungclas

Class of 2016

Major: Computer Science

Internship Site: Ohio National Financial Services

Location: Cincinnati, OH

Intern Responsibilities: As an intern, I worked with test automation to create programs that automatically ran testing of jobs for their Automated Work Distribution (AWD) Team. I also worked on a project for test automation so that regression testing would be a lot faster. Testing was taking weeks to months to accomplish because it was done by human testing, but test automation reduced the time down to 20 minutes. 

What I Learned: I learned a lot from this experience which included creating programs myself so that I could use them in my everyday life and help me with getting my work done faster. I plan on creating and executing more programs that will help my school work go faster as well as helping other people to get their work done faster. I want to make the programs accessible for everyone so that they can get through their work faster and more efficiently than they are now. I could see test automation being my first job as well as a giant step into the working world.