Sophia Strobach

Responsibilities

At my internship, I currently hold the position of Operations Assistant and FashionTeam Coordinator. For the operations side, I was an overall administrative assistant.This included tasks such as taking meeting notes, keeping track of company schedules, sending EOD updates of projects, and finally helping answer questions that the other interns might have. As for the fashion side of things, I am the Fashion Team Coordinator. I am responsible for leading and assisting the fashion team interns in any way. Overall, I make sure that the group hits deadlines, achieves goals, and exceeds expectations. One of my main responsibilities throughout the internship was to organize, record, and photograph our inventory to produce an eCommerce platform like Shopify and Pinterest. Throughout the internship, we processed about 300+ items of clothing for our pilot eCommerce platform.

Accomplishments

My greatest accomplishment is starting to work with and research retail therapy sessions for women heroes. This is a great opportunity, as initially, my intern group wasn't going to be a part of this start-up. However, due to how fast and seamless our group moved through the inventory, we were given the opportunity to start finding clients and organizations to conduct retail therapy sessions with. These sessions allow us to ascertain the client’s needs and what they would feel comfortable wearing. The sessions will be taking place either onsite or online, using the garment photos that the group produced earlier in the internship. This will provide our customers a hands-on shopping experience with a “stylist” feel to it, giving them the confidence to take on the next step in their journey.

Learning experience

My greatest lesson from this experience was that, it’s okay that not everything is going to be perfect the first time. As a start-up, there is a lot of trial and error that we did when completing daily tasks. I found this frustrating at certain points as the group would have to redo certain tasks or even completely change how we went about things. I wanted to make sure things were perfect the first time but that wasn't the case, and I had to learn to adjust, delegate tasks and try again till we reached the desired outcome. Most of all I discovered that there is much to be learned to continue to improve and that is OK!!!! With that being said, I couldn’t be more grateful for this experience as it has improved both my creative problem solving abilities and communication skills. At the end, trust the process because you may never know what will come from it and the journey is as important as the destination/product.

What advice would you give?

Step out of your comfort zone. This can help you greatly when applying for internships and even working onsite. It can be scary and intimidating during this transition however, don’t let that hold you back from your true potential. Something I found helpful is that I took a couple of days at a time and applied for every internship under the sun. I just went for it! Not only did this help me out of my comfort zone, but I also gained more knowledge of the industry and even improved on my interviewing skills. Just remember to take time for yourself, be open to new possibilities and soak up any experience you can find!