Today we’re going to read about the internship experience of Tristan Guenther, from University of Cincinnati, who studied abroad in Fall 2018 with the USAC Verona program.
Growing up in America, many students are not aware of the abroad opportunities they have in their possession. I am from a small city in Ohio and have had the desire to travel and become aware of other cultures since I was a child. I always knew I wanted to study abroad but was not sure exactly how to go about it.
If you have the opportunity and ambition to study abroad, do it! If you have the courage and motivation to intern abroad, take advantage of it.
Interning abroad through USAC Verona, Italy was the best decision I have made. USAC Verona offers many internship opportunities for students with different majors from all over the country. I knew I wanted to get the absolute most out of this experience and international business is the field that I dream to work in after graduation. While having many options to choose from, I chose a marketing internship with a creative consultancy company in Verona called ASHT*ART. ASHT*ART is an inspiring company, created by owner Giulia Pordd, and focuses on the collaboration between art and business. I knew this would be the perfect fit for me because I have a passion for writing, marketing and communications. I was intrigued and excited to witness the Italian business culture and I have not been disappointed.
I continue to acquire many different tasks at ASHT*ART and all of which I thoroughly enjoy. ASHT*ART’s clients consist of notable companies who focus on art, design, and architecture. Since the beginning of the semester, I have helped to create social media plans per month for our client’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I have been beneficial for the company because the social media is all in English. I go through and pick certain photos from our client’s magazines, website, etc., then create a layout for the month per social media channel. After getting the layout approved, I then help create captions for each photo and fix any translation or grammatical errors. Seeing my work on these large social media accounts is very rewarding and exciting since they are well-known Italian companies.
Apart from social media for our clients, I also help ASHT*ART come up with social media posts for their Instagram and Facebook and translate press releases from Italian to English. I even had the privilege to accompany Giulia to an Italian event and document the experience through the ASHT*ART Instagram story. Giulia guides me through my tasks while also allowing me to have a lot of freedom in order to enhance my creativity. She has been a major inspiration to me and I look up to her as a woman invested in business and entrepreneurship.
All aspects of my internship have been rewarding and fulfilling but my favorite part so far was our event, the hidden-hub. ASHT*ART spent months of hard work planning the event which ended up being very successful. Hidden-hub is focused on the “hidden” lives of locals living in the small Verona neighborhood surrounding the authentic neighborhood ASHT*ART is located in. A beautiful art gallery from Florence allowed us to use their pieces around the studio, local students from the university in Verona created an amazing video which inspired creativity and interviewed the locals who were chosen to tell their story, and Giulia was able to show off all her hard work by explaining what ASHT*ART is all about. The launch-event was filled with local Italians who are invested in the art-industry, are simply curious, or attended to support the company. It was a great opportunity for me to meet new people and practice my Italian.
Overall, this was the internship I dreamed of having in the beautiful, ancient city of Verona. Verona all around is filled with passion, creativity, history and inspiration. I have learned more than I expected to and believe this internship will benefit my future in more ways than one. I thought interning as an American student in an Italian culture would be intimidating and that I would feel out of place but that was not the case at all. I plan on staying in contact with the amazing people I met during my internship and hope to get an international job in the future.
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