by Joaquin Arellano

The Beginning – My OYE Internship

“Don’t ever doubt yourselves or waste a second of your life. It’s too short, and you’re too special.”

Ariana Grande said this recently, and she’s not wrong. When I started my marketing internship search, I wanted to find someplace to work where I could grow my knowledge in my career. The thing is, not only did I want to grow in my profession, I wanted to grow as a person as well.

This marketing internship search is incredibly hard when you constantly get rejected and every news that is given to you is a ‘No’ versus a ‘Yes’. Rejection is hard, and I began to doubt whether marketing was the right career path for me. I found myself in a mental state where I wanted to give up, I was tired of rejection and I felt like I was getting nowhere. I have struggled in the past with staying positive and motivated to push forward; this was no different. What do I do? I decided to take Ariana’s advice and kept pushing for the right opportunity.

OYE then came into my life and my luck took a dramatic turn. The first day that I interviewed, I knew that this was the marketing software company I wanted to intern for. I started my internship and immediately knew that I was going to gain skills that I could take with me long term. The moment I stepped into the door the first day, I was greeted by Ana, Samantha, Eric, and Christian in the Phoenix office. Instantly, I knew that I was in for a treat. I was stepping into a family, not into just another company. Not only was I going to be able to grow my professional skills, but I was going to get the chance to grow as a person as well. Just as I wanted.

My Family Away From Home

To detail my work team, I’ll start with Samantha. Samantha – she is the sweetest person I have ever met. Samantha is a personality on her own and anyone that knows her, knows what an amazing person she is. Her healthy snacks keep you energized and her fun personality keeps you laughing all day. Samantha showed me what it takes to stay organized and to keep pushing forward. She works extremely hard and kept me motivated to work even harder.

Then there was Christian. His witty and fun personality is shown daily in the office. The amount of patience that he has for us interns definitely helps propel the amount of production we are able to get done. Without Christian, I would still probably be stuck trying to figure out the data categories for my first OYE short study on laptop brand preferences (which you can read here!). The categories were the part where we segregated the raw data into the most common keywords to help analyze the data into focused topic categories.

My colleague Ana was a big part of this journey as well, not only did she work alongside me daily, but she became one of my closest friends. Ana, Samantha and I had countless laughs and deep conversations that I will cherish forever. Eric, a co-founder of OYE, was the backbone of everything. An extremely hardworking individual that has my utmost respect. I have learned so much from him as he is such an incredible entrepreneur. Eric is an incredibly hard-working person that is very passionate about what he does but is deeply understanding as well. Most people would call him my ‘boss‘, but he was so much more than that; he was my mentor, and I couldn’t ask for anyone better in that role.

What’s Next? – OYE Internship Perspective

OYE taught me so much! This experience as part of the team has been nothing but positive. Working through the short studies, interviewing influencers for blogs, working on social media posts, and more. My OYE internship has been so beneficial for me and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience. I am now off to graduate from Arizona State University and to start my career with one of the top employers in the valley. As I leave, I take with me the countless laughs, smiles, and conversations I had here as part of the OYE team. This is not goodbye, this is, “I’ll see you later.”

oye internship perspective

Thank you, see you soon!