Ever since I started working at Education at Work (EAW), I have been eager to grow. I always try to put my best foot forward and make a lasting impression at my workplace, and when I was hired at EAW in May of 2016, they had first opened up the Arizona State University (ASU) contact center. I knew that being among the first in the door was going to be critical for me to make an impression and develop my skills, and I am glad to say that I have already been able to accomplish both goals. During my time at EAW, I have not only been been trained in multiple departments, but over two semesters I’ve earned $3,000 in tuition assistance. In addition, I’ve developed professional email skills, become a certified email agent mentor, and mentored two classes of new contact center hires. Still, I am looking forward to continuing to expand my horizons within EAW.
Today, I can still remember the first time I met Amanda Nash, the Associate Director of Educational Outreach at EAW. Amanda often organizes tuition assistance celebrations and other events at the ASU site, and it was at the first tuition assistance celebration that I instantly connected with her. I continued seeing her at events, and every time we spoke was a laugh fest. At some point amidst those interactions, I stopped looking at Amanda as simply a supervisor, and began seeing her as my mentor. In fact, it was her involvement in student engagement that sparked my interest in a potential internship opportunity.
I spoke with Amanda about how I needed an internship to graduate and was stressed about obtaining one while knowing I needed to continue working to support myself financially. After some discussion, Amanda presented me with the opportunity of a lifetime - working with EAW as a social media intern. This was especially exciting because as a journalism major, I focus not only on print but multimedia and have always been interested in expanding my social and digital media expertise. Furthermore, the position Amanda offered me was not just the one i needed, but the one I wanted. The hours would be flexible, and I would expand my skills and experiences in the ways I had hoped. I was especially confident I could manage EAW’s ASU Twitter page and write testimonial stories about ASU students, and knew those projects and the opportunity as a whole would help me strengthen my resume.
As someone who is very active on social media and the digital world, I have always wanted to experience the professional side of things and I’m excited to be working for a company that I have already been familiar with for several months. I am active on multiple platforms: Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube, and Pinterest, and have kept up with them almost daily ever since I had access to a computer when I was 14. I love social media because I can always keep up with my friends and family outside of my busy life, and while it is not face-to-face, you still get that personal touch of how their lives are going through what they post and share. Social media is such a powerful tool today, especially in the journalism world, and it helps get stories exposed to a public audience. As a journalism major I knew I needed to learn to thrive on social media.
When it came down to it, Amanda was able to help connect me with this internship, and move from my student teammate role in the contact center to my current social media intern role. I am so glad she saw the opportunity as something I could strive in. Having Amanda as my mentor in the workforce was great before, but now that I have her as a supervisor and mentor for this internship, it’s a blessing. Even in the first short month of me working at this internship I have already learned so much that I can apply to my future, which will benefit me as I continue to work hard and make sure all I produce is the best it can possibly can be.
About the Author
Hey y’all! My name is Emily Kingsley and I’m currently a junior attending Arizona State University and studying Journalism and Mass Communications. I have two amazing cats, Juno and Artemis, and I love to draw and paint in my free time when I am not working or at school continuing to work towards my career goals. After college I hope to have my own media organization and be the editor-in-chief of said organization. I have been working at EAW since May of 2016 and was among the first wave of EAW ASU student-employees. I have been cross trained in two departments, mentor certified to help in the incoming classes, and I am currently also a Social Media Intern for EAW.