“Work hard and go get it.”
How do you land an internship? Ask design major Samantha Destura ’19. She’s a design intern at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, working on the layout, look, and user experience for consumer, clinician, and workforce mobile apps.
"I reached out to USF alumna Melanie Baybay ’15 MS ’18 on LinkedIn. She’s working as a health technician at Kaiser Permanente, and I asked her if she could put in a good word for me. She was happy to forward my online portfolio to their main recruiter. Within a couple of days, I received an email for an interview. Now I really understand how networking can make a huge difference. It is my hope to pay it forward and help out a fellow USF design student someday."
"My dad always told me, ‘There is no such thing as good luck — only hard work and preparation.’ I attended the USF Career Fair when I was a sophomore even though I knew there weren’t many opportunities for art and design. But I didn’t care. I shook hands with every employer, handed out my resume, and kept asking if they needed a new logo or infographics for their pamphlets — anything, really. Then afterwards I laid out all their business cards on my dorm room floor and sent each recruiter and follow-up email along with a link to my portfolio. Finally, one company asked me to come in for an interview. That ended up being my very first internship, at Vituity, a health care practice management organization. My advice: if you really want something, work hard with no excuses and go get it."
