Paige Weston

Majors: Public Relations & Strategic Communication and Political Science

Intern at Communications & Marketing intern for Visit Bentonville

How did you learn about this internship opportunity?

I reached out to family friends back at home and asked directly if I could send my resume to someone in their communications department. The internship I got was never posted on LinkedIn or any other job site, and I got to work with the communications team to craft it to be whatever I wanted to work on.

How has your internship helped build your skills and clarify your career goals? How did being a Liberal Arts student at Purdue apply to your internship?

Being a part of Boiler Communication (student-run PR firm) within the College of Liberal Arts helped me a ton! While my internship was in-house and not with an agency, it was still extremely helpful and prepared me for all the social media content creation and campaign planning I worked on. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to work in Communications/Public Relations. COM 257 also helped me a lot with newsletters, emails, and professional press releases I had to write throughout the summer.

What is a piece of advice you would give someone in your major looking for an internship?

Connections are everything! While your first internship might be your dream job, it likely won’t be, so be prepared for that. I never would have guessed I would enjoy working in the tourism industry, but I did!

What key responsibilities or tasks have you taken on during your internship?

My favorite responsibility I have undertaken is campaign planning and execution. As a tourism bureau, there have been numerous campaigns I have been able to help plan and promote including the Bentonville Film Festival, Bike Fest, FreshGrass music festival, and Bentonville Restaurant Week to name some of the big ones. Not only did I get to do the work to market these events, but I also got to see the fruits of my labor and attend them (which is probably the best part)! Other responsibilities of the internship included making and posting weekly reels and story posts to Instagram and Facebook, monitoring email communication, and conducting a summer long architectural research project.

In what ways has the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue University supported your internship journey? How has your participation in our job-ready program specifically aided your professional development?

The College of Liberal Arts and the job-ready program has allowed me to focus on my internship and say yes to any extra opportunities that came up after work hours such as attending the red carpet/opening night of the Bentonville Film Festival or going to concerts as press to capture content. Without this scholarship, I would have had to get another part time job to earn some more money over the summer and probably wouldn’t have gotten to attend these exciting events.

Could you highlight a standout aspect of your experience in this program that you find particularly noteworthy?

The most noteworthy part of being a part of the Job-Ready program is that it helped make having an internship while also studying for the LSAT possible this summer.