Aug. 29, 2019

This paid piece is presented by the USD Beacom School of Business.

From Alaska to North Carolina – and, of course, Sioux Falls in between – students at the USD Beacom School of Business have immersed themselves in learning this summer.

“We have students interning across the country and even across the globe this summer,” said Mandy Hanson, Career Success Center manager at the USD Beacom School of Business.

The opportunities are pretty amazing – with students placed at leading organizations such as Deloitte, Goldman Sachs and Sanford Health.

Incoming senior Gage Hillberg, a finance major, spent his summer in Raleigh, N.C., as a wealth and investment management intern at Wells Fargo.

“I have always wanted to have an opportunity to learn more about financial advising, so this was the perfect opportunity,” he said. “The work environment is very professional but with room for employees to be a little laid-back.”

He learned about compliance and regulatory changes affecting the industry, he said, and traveled to St. Louis with other members of his intern class to learn more about career paths at Wells Fargo.

“Many of the financial advisers in the office allow you to pick their brains to see how they have ended up where they are,” he added.

“I also have the opportunity to help with their daily work flow, and that leads to new bits of information and training every day. I have definitely improved on my skills when it comes to being able to display and present information in a way that is digestible to others.”

USD prepared him well, he continued, “to not only work on technical information … but really cement my soft skills that are vital for everyday work in financial advising.”

While Hillberg’s internship took him east, Nicole Hilsendeger’s was even farther west. The incoming junior is a double major in health services administration and human resources management who interned in Alaska with Primrose Retirement Community.

“I’m actually the first intern that Primrose has had,” she said, explaining that her father, who works in the organization’s home office in Aberdeen, helped make the connection.

“I had never been to Alaska before, and he has been there a couple times for work and vacation and said it was great and the executive director there was wonderful. He said it was a good opportunity, and she was willing to give me an internship and teach me.”

Hilsendeger’s journey took her to Wasilla, a community of about 10,000 people in the south-central part of the state, where she actually lived with the executive director of the Primrose center there.

“I didn’t know a single person when I got there,” she said. “But my boss let me stay in her home, and when she picked me up at the airport, it was the first time I’d met her. It was very cool to get to experience a whole new work environment along with living in a whole new place.”

Surrounded by mountains, moose and other Alaskan wildlife, Hilsendeger took advantage of the exceptionally long daylight hours to squeeze in hikes and glacier tours around her work schedule.

At Primrose, she spent six weeks interning and was assigned to a different area each week. She did everything from sitting in on  sales and marketing meetings to helping in the kitchen.

“I really enjoyed my time there. Everyone was super friendly, the staff worked well together, and I got a feel for how the whole thing runs.”

She also spent considerable time shadowing the executive director to get a sense for what it’s really like to work in health care leadership.

“I learned a lot,” Hilsendeger said. “I learned the executive director did a lot of work outside work because when she was at work, residents and families were always in the office, and she had to be really good at time management.”

Students in health services administration are responsible for at least one administrative project and a research project.

While at Primrose, Hilsendeger updated the center’s disaster preparedness plan and developed a business proposal to add a memory care unit. In the proposal, she discussed cost, accreditation, staffing, benefits to potential residents and challenges.

“Her report was very comprehensive and will be utilized as Primrose moves toward this venture,” said Dr. Jewel Goodman Shepherd, internship coordinator and assistant professor in USD’s health services administration department.

“We strive to connect our students with health care agencies where their work will be valued and where the preceptor will also serve as a professional mentor. We further encourage students to work with populations that they may not have had any prior experience with so that the internship is truly a learning experience.”

Hilsendeger said her USD classes and faculty prepared her well for the experience.

“Even just basic accounting and finance classes helped because when we were meeting on budgets, I knew what they were talking about,” she said.

“And because it’s a nursing home, Medicaid and Medicare are involved, and I had learned about that in class, so it was nice to see I’d been learning things that applied to my internship and are going to help me in the future. The experience definitely showed me that I like my major and I’m going in the right direction.”

Many students stayed closer to home with equally strong experiences.

Incoming senior Brianna Olson was a design intern at Lemonly in Sioux Falls, which was an ideal fit for her dual degree in marketing and graphic design.

She first set foot in Lemonly during high school after a teacher arranged for her to shadow there for a day.

“I fell in love with their work and became determined to build a strong portfolio of work in college so that I could be part of their internship program,” she said.

“Getting an internship at Lemonly was my biggest goal in college. I could not have done it without the support of some amazing professors in both the fine arts building, the business school and through my tech fellowship.”

Olson was selected this spring and started at the end of May, working on mood boards, wireframes and designs for internal and client projects, along with collaborating with team members.

“On any given day, I could be participating in client calls or doing a creative workshop on our stadium steps,” she said. “I’ve been able to learn how long specific projects take me to complete by breaking down my day and using time-management tools. I’ve also gained a stronger understanding of how the different positions in a design firm function through the progression of a project.”

Her goal for the summer was “to absorb as much as I can” and learn whether an agency might be the right work environment after college, she said.

“This experience has given me a better grasp of where my strengths lie and a sense of direction in the areas that I want to improve as a designer,” she said.

Olson said her USD education has provided customized course work that allowed her to balance growing her design and business skills.

“I’ve been introduced to so many businesses both local and in large cities through trips and networking events,” she said. “I definitely feel that was a big part of what allowed me to become such a strong candidate for this competitive internship program.”

USD Beacom students have found opportunities in both highly structured internships as well as customized ones, said Hanson of the Career Success Center.

“One student was brought on as the first intern for a South Dakota company, and he helped the company with a large rebranding project. He was able to apply the marketing skills he has learned in the classroom to his day-to-day tasks as a marketing intern,” she said.

“Overall, we have been hearing really great feedback on how much students are learning, growing and truly making an impact with employers through their internships.”

Getting connected

Students often are matched with internship and career opportunities through the USD Beacom School of Business Career Success Center, which is specifically designed for business students. The center also helps with applications, resume preparation and mock interviews.

“We know how valuable the experience is, so we invest a lot of resources in providing students with a great opportunity as well as providing employers with a pool of students who are responsible, prepared and ready to take on an internship,” Hanson said.

If your business would like to build more relationships with USD Beacom students, Hanson encourages ongoing involvement. The school hosts several networking events for employers and students, and many businesses provide guest speakers for student organizations.

“Our students are most engaged with employers who are present on campus throughout the year and are able to build a relationship with them,” she said.