Isabella Pliska
Social Butterfly
Internships offer a great way to teach and share information with a person ready to start their career. They provide employment training and experiential learning opportunities that often enhance a person’s professional qualities and strengthen ‘soft skills’ such as teamwork, communication, problem-solving, and professionalism. Internships also provide job seekers with the chance to break into the workforce and gain meaningful experience to launch their careers.
In honor of National Internship Awareness Month, this Profile in Passion highlights Marywood University Marketing intern Isabella Pliska.
In a few short weeks, Marywood University’s spring semester will come to a close. For Pliska, a sophomore marketing major, the semester serves as a pivotal point on the road to realizing her dream of working in social media marketing. On top of managing a full-time course load and part-time job, Pliska took part in her first internship.
For the past four months, Pliska wracked up one invaluable experience after another as a spring intern in Marywood University’s Marketing Department. In addition to strategizing weekly content and campaigns, monitoring Marywood’s social media channels, assisting on commercial photo shoots, and creating engaging TikTok and Instagram posts, Pliska cites one thing that rises to the top of those invaluable experiences: relationship building. The relationships she’s cultivated during her internship experience, which she treasures, are truly priceless.
“Everyone in the department treated me like family,'' said Pliska. “It was a welcoming environment from day one, which made my experience that much better. I’ve learned so much from these people. My understanding of marketing and what I’ll be doing in the field is much clearer than when I started.”
Pliska’s passion for social media marketing can’t be questioned. However, the same could be said about her other passion—gaming. When she’s not busy with school or work, Pliska can usually be found playing video games with her friends or watching live gaming streams on Twitch. In a perfect world, Pliska would like to combine her passions to become a social media manager for a company like Riot Games, a Los Angeles based video game developer, publisher, and esports tournament organizer best known for creating games such as League of Legends and Valorant.
“I’ve always wanted to go down the esports path,” said Pliska. “My dream company to work for is Riot Games, which is the biggest esports organizer in the world. One thing that Marywood has taught me is that it’s okay to dream. So, maybe one day.”
Students who complete internships increase their post-graduation employment chances by 85 percent, according to a recent study by Monster.com. Completing an internship doesn’t just make college grads more likely to be employed following graduation - it also increases the number of job offers they receive. Job applicants with an internship on their resume receive an impressive 16 percent more offers than candidates without them, according to a study by CompareCamp.