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Profile
of Jennifer Good, Intern, Marketing and Promotions Office, Athletic Department, University of Pittsburgh, 8/08
by Graham Thomas
PPW/Writing Center Publicity Intern
 Jennifer is currently working on her degree in Media and Professional Communications, a minor in Dance, and certificates in Corporate/Community Relations and Public and Professional Writing. Needless to say, Jen is an extremely focused and motivated person. Being an avid sports fan, she decided to pursue an internship at The University of Pittsburgh Athletic Department, in the Marketing and Promotions Office. The Marketing and Promotions Office creates the promotions for every sporting event at Pitt. For example, Pink the Pete, The World’s Largest Student Tailgate was one of the promotions done by her department. The objective of her department is to increase school spirit, for both students and outside fans, and get them interested in attending Pitt’s sporting events and supporting the teams.
Although the internship seemed intimidating at first, requiring an abundance of time, hard work, and dedication, Jen decided to make the commitment. It took her no time at all to get adjusted to the office since there were several other college students working there and her bosses were still in their twenties. Also, since she had so much work to do, Jen says, “Luckily for me, I was thrown into something right away, so I had no time to worry if everyone liked me – I just had to work and get it done.”
At her internship, Jen did a variety of tasks. She spent a lot of time in the office updating and confirming mailing information, as well as making spreadsheets of different groups of people to target for upcoming promotions. She also designed several t-shirts, some of which were used. Although writing was a bit scarce, she did write emails on a daily basis and wrote a promotion featuring LeSean McCoy.
When football season started, nearly all of her time was spent at the games. Some of her responsibilities at the games included providing security for the men’s basketball team as they signed autographs, running training camp for the younger fans outside of the Great Hall, and her most important job, holding the doors for the football team as they run out of the tunnel. Jen says, “Holding the doors was the most nerve wracking and terrifying thing I have ever done, but I loved every single minute of it.” The best part of working at the games was that she got an all access pass to Heinz Field, meaning she could literally go anywhere in Heinz Field, including the locker room and the club level. Although the internship was rewarding, she wishes she would have had more writing duties.
Overall, Jen felt the internship was so rewarding that she now wants to pursue a career with some kind of sports team or university. Although she wishes the internship paid, she still felt it was a great learning experience and will help her in the future.
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