How overwhelmingly exciting must it be to find yourself in New York City, one of the most well-known cities in the world, getting your first taste of a life of true independence and tremendous responsibility. That is what I thought to myself in the beginning of June looking outside of the fire escape in my new Brooklyn apartment. Ever since I began my pursuit of marketing three years ago at Arizona State University, I was curious to know what it was like working at an advertising agency.

As I speak to you today as the most current and up-to-date version of myself, the Yashlee from 2016 to summer 2022 still shines through. I can stand here and tell you today that I feel a sense of confidence in myself that has been lacking for years. I don’t mean confidence pertaining to if I’m pretty or if I’m funny to others, but more so regarding my intellect.

Anyone who grew up speaking several languages knows the limits of the English language. We all know that instance when we’re chatting with a friend, telling an animated play-by-play of an event, but then you hit a roadblock. The exact phrase you need is right at the tip of your tongue, but it’s not in English.  

Life has never been the easiest for me, in ways I am only recently coming to fully understand. Some of my earliest memories in school are of taking obsessive mental notes on what other kids wore and mentally tallying the days I wore an Aéropostale or Abercrombie t-shirt, figuring if I hit an optimal weekly ratio of name-brand to non-name-brand clothing, I would magically become popular.

“Hey, could you all take a walk to our neighbor’s room until I’m done with this call?” This was the classic line for me and my four roommates while applying for internships in our small Spanish apartment during our semester studying abroad in Barcelona. This was our code that someone needed the “office” (a.k.a. our kitchen) to focus and prep for an interview.

As a current rising senior at Penn State, I still feel like the excited high school senior I was in March 2020 before the COVID-19 global pandemic began. Within the blink of an eye, three years flew by.

Since my drive-in high school graduation, I have shaped myself into the empowered young woman I am today. My journey was not always smooth, but I will say I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Hi, I’m Amanda. I am a 20-year-old college student, a twin sister, a daughter, a NJ resident, and a dual citizen. And most recently, I have become a girl behind your TikTok screen. One of my assignments as the corporate communications intern at Publicis Health was to create our company’s first and official TikTok page. (Follow @PublicisHealth Tok if you haven’t already done so.) I am going to offer some tips and tricks to help you navigate your intern experience—from my internship to yours. Hopefully these TikToks will make you laugh, at least a little bit.

My experience at Publicis Health was such a warm and insightful experience, and I really look forward to applying the leadership and independent skills that my team has taught me in the future. I started my journey here at Publicis completely blind at what I was about to endure. I was part of the Regulatory team at Digitas Health for my six-month apprenticeship. To be honest, it took me a minute to get used to being an apprentice as I never had any prior experience. Before this opportunity, I didn’t even know what a Regulatory apprentice was!

From the beginning of the Year Up Professional Resources program (YUPRO), I had goals to grow as a professional, expand my skill set, and learn more in-depth about the differences and similarities between Finance and Accounting. As an intern within the Business Financial Insights (BFI) and Client Finance teams, I was able to learn how the agency as a whole overlaps with the Finance team’s responsibilities. During my internship experience with Heartbeat, I was able to develop my analysis, technical, and financial and accounting reporting skills.

Ciao! I am Betta Deblasio, 25-years-old and perhaps one of Publicis Health’s more non-traditional interns, let me explain: In undergraduate school I studied biology and for many years I had dreamed of becoming a doctor. But, once I was in the pre-medical program, I wasn't sure if that was the direction that I wanted to truly dive into for the remainder of my career—it felt like so many years to give up for a career I was not sure about. Once I graduated, I was unsure of my next move and planned to take a year off to travel and plan out my next career move.

My name is Cortney Knight, and I have been an apprentice at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, a Publicis Health agency, for almost six months. I can honestly say this has been the most rewarding yet personally challenging role, and I can happily say that with a smile on my face! I know what you are thinking: How could something so hard make me smile? Well, it’s because working here gives me the unique opportunity to work on my emotional, mental, and overall personal battles. I believe that everything we do is connected.

It’s summer 2022, I still wear my mask on the train, I work from home three out of five days of the week, and I don’t sit too close to strangers. Even though it’s been more than 2 years since the pandemic began, the effects of COVID-19 are still lingering to this day. One thing that remained the same, however, is the liminality of the college intern experience.

What is my purpose? Like many other college students my age, determining my purpose was not always forefront in my mind. As my junior year began, however, I began to unpack this simple yet overwhelmingly complex question. My year began with the stress of what my summer of 2022 would look like. Where will I intern? What do I even want to do? Is marketing what I should be pursuing? These questions would continue to take up space in my mind for months.

Last year, for lack of better words, I was having a bit of an identity crisis. At the time, it was the fall semester of my junior year in college, and while I was feeling confident in my major in Business administration, I experienced a sense of uncertainty that I would not find a job that aligns with my personal characteristics, strengths and interests. In order to gain a sense of clarity, I began to take a series of personality tests online to gain a better insight on various career paths that would fit my personal traits.

My name is Kwame Bullen and I am a Technology manager and Strategy apprentice at Digitas Health (DH). As my apprenticeship comes to a close, I want to express how I found value, community, and the foundation for a career during my time at DH. It’s been an amazing time working at DH, especially because I enjoy the work culture. At DH people are friendly—and in a hybrid working world, nothing screams ‘friendly’ more than someone pinging you a smiley face emoji via Microsoft Teams.

As a visual learner, I appreciate an environment where I can combine technology and business—and thanks to Year Up, I’m getting to do just that at Publicis Health Media (PHM). I am a Colombian-American based in New Jersey, currently attending Hudson County Community College to earn an Associate’s Degree in Liberal Arts and Business. During my first year of college, I joined a learning and development program for young professionals called Year Up.

I’m sure many young people can relate to the uncertainty of trying to make decisions regarding your future. We spend all of our high school years trying to decide what to major in at college and then, if you’re anything like me, you spend most of college questioning whether or not you made the right choice. I decided to pursue advertising in the summer before my senior year of high school. To be honest, it was the first major I felt I could be okay at, so I went with it.

As an only child of immigrants from Indonesia and the first in my family to attend university, I often felt the pressure and burden of my family’s expectations for me to succeed. While I appreciate that the achievements I’ve worked hard for were not handed to me easily, I also understand that being a first-generation American means taking the mantle of my forebears, which includes bringing honor and respect to the previous generations that worked so hard to help get me to where I am today.

American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson may have written the phrase “the first wealth is health” in 1860, but the concept of “health is wealth” continues to resonate deeply with me today. When I was growing up, I never fully considered the tremendous impact health has on everyone’s life. Oftentimes when we are in good health, we take for granted how fortunate we are and don’t stop to think about how others may struggle with health issues on a day-to-day basis.

The term “going back to the office” meant nothing to me. Going back somewhere implies returning to a place from where you’ve been before, and as a summer intern at Digitas Health, there was no place for me to go back to. It was just going to the office. Before this summer, I hadn’t stepped within 500 feet of any office, let alone go into one for a real-life, paid job.

Starting my internship search, I was very lost on where I wanted to go. As a first-generation college student from Whiting, Indiana, a city with a population of 5,000 people, I didn’t have any guidance or anyone to turn to for help. Going into college, it seemed as if everyone knew the route they were taking, whereas I always struggled to find my own path. I eventually declared my major as informatics at Indiana University—a huge step for me—but it was still difficult to decide what I wanted to do with my degree.

In another life, prior to joining the Talent Team at Publicis Health, I worked at university career services offices. I was one of those career center people who often heard the surprised choruses of students who’d say, “I never knew this office existed!” and “I should have come here sooner!” Meanwhile, my colleagues and I worked hard to promote our services and visibility across campus. Over the course of five years, I worked on Drexel University’s Cooperative Education program team, then transitioned to Temple University’s Career Services department.

Years ago, a technician visited my house to install a fiber optic internet connection. I remember staring inquisitively at the blinking lights on the box. After a lengthy Q&A session with my father, I realized those lights meant I was connected to the internet, and to Google! This experience marked my life’s journey of summer camp coding classes, fixing my relatives' computers, teaching myself new software, and so on.

College is a time to step out of your comfort zone and learn more about yourself, a time to take classes to learn about the history of pop music or molecular biology. No matter where you may attend school, you are given the opportunity to take a wide range of classes that broaden your horizon and help you find your area of interest.

Until my college advisor mentioned it, I hadn’t heard of Publicis Groupe. On a regular afternoon during my senior year, otherwise known as procrastination hours, I got a call from my favorite advisor who had become more of a friend at this point. He told me about an upcoming event for multicultural students in advertising, hosted by Publicis Groupe, and asked if I was interested in attending.

If you asked me this time last year where I would be right now, I never would have imagined I would be interning at such an incredible company. When I received the call from HR that I had been accepted as the Marketing/Business Development Intern at Razorfish Health, I was in disbelief considering the seemingly never-ending internship process.

Somewhere in life, we’ve all been asked the question, “What would you like to be when you grow up?” The good-natured query often comes from attentive parents or introspective teachers, all eager to mold untapped adolescent potential into a promise of an ambitious future.

As I wrap up my first week as the Marketing Communications intern at Publicis Health, I catch myself revisiting many feelings from this past year. It’s been overwhelming to learn so much about the corporate setting for the first time, and doing so in a virtual space is quite strange.

Traditional, in-person career fairs have largely been replaced by virtual career fairs. In times B.C. (Before COVID-19), career fairs consisted of rows of six-foot-long tables, seas of recruiters, and sometimes upwards of 500 students searching for their dream job. There was pressure for a flawless handshake and a pile of printed résumés to be distributed to others. Fast forward to the present, and students are expected to stand out among the career fair crowd from behind a computer screen.

Purpose. A simple word, but one with a lot of weight behind it. Why? Because purpose implies something larger, something bigger than oneself, and that can be a bit scary. We often find ourselves asking, “What’s the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning?” “What do I want to accomplish in my career?” Or, “What can I do to contribute to my community and society?” For many, these questions can be difficult to answer.