Rebecca Barker

Responsibilities

While at Live Healthy Iowa, I was responsible for a little bit of everything. During the first few months I was in charge of providing customer service to participants of the 10 Week Wellness Challenge. This mainly consisted of updating passwords, correcting email addresses, etc. Midway through my internship is when I was tasked with the most work. I was helping manage reports from the 10 Week Challenge, as well as gearing up for the Strut Your Pup Challenge. This is the challenge that I did the most work with, and I loved every second of it. I got to create and send out the flyers to organizations, mail out incentives, and create the weekly emails send out to participants. One of the most rewarding things about this challenge was getting to see it start from something so small and growing into the most successful year that it has ever had.

Accomplishments

My greatest accomplishment from this internship was the work that I did with the Live Healthy Iowa Strut Your Pup challenge. I was responsible for this challenge from the start and loved every second of it. I got to create the content that would be featured in the weekly emails, and came up with the idea to have a weekly "Pup-parazzi" Photo Contest to showcase the participant's dogs, as well as create a "Pup Quiz" to go out each week. This challenge brought out the best in people, and so many people responded with pictures of their dogs and really seemed to enjoy the challenge. It was extremely rewarding to work so much on this project.

What advice would you give?

My advice for future students is to branch out from your comfort zone and consider taking an internship with an organization that you maybe don't know that much about. Live Healthy Iowa is located in Ames, yet I had never even heard about it until I began my internship search. I am writing this during my last few days with the organization, and I cannot believe how fast time has gone. Enjoy every second while you can, and ask questions as much as possible. I learned so much about job hunting, and over all "adulting" just from asking questions to the staff members. Most of the time they will love to share their experiences because they were in your shoes at one point too!