Coming from studying design academically and doing freelancing, I came into this internship at GARCIA looking for a bridge between my classes and real world industries. I wanted to see how my design work could actually function within the bigger picture of PR and community advocacy.

As a recent college graduate who didn’t have any internship experience under her belt, I soon realized that I would be competing with other job candidates that had one, two, or even more internships stacked up on their résumés. And in this current job market, where you’re expected to have work experience straight out of college, I decided to try and apply for internships, rather than full time positions. But I didn’t think it would be possible to find a good internship post-grad that accepted candidates who already earned their degrees—and a paid one at that. That was until I saw a job listing on LinkedIn from GARCIA, for marketing and communications.