During the summer of 2015, Marie Soukup, an International Business and Creative Writing major, interned in the marketing department at Mariani. Mariani is known for their landscaping expertise in both maintaining and designing beautiful properties in the northern Chicago area. In Marie’s major, she took a breadth of courses that prepared her for this internship, including Digital Marketing, Global Environmental Economics, and many Creative Writing courses.

Marie’s internship employed the business knowledge from the Chatham curriculum, and it required creativity and thinking outside the box to understand the company mission and how to communicate that effectively to the clientele. She had the opportunity to visit client sites around the area (both residential and commercial); attend business meetings; meet with PR agencies; research sustainable practices in landscaping; edit and read Mariani’s blog, In the Garden; aid in editing the web copy for their new website; organize photos to accompany the new website; monitor various social media platforms; and write articles for the company network. The diversity in the work Marie was a part of and completed was vast and covered every area of the curriculum for her double major.

Marie commented on her internship, saying, “My internship with Mariani solidified that my double major is precisely the work I envision in a future career field and so much more! Even more so, my growing interest in sustainability led to enrolling in varied electives this fall semester, but I could not be more excited to see what I learn in the months to come. My hope is that every student has a similar internship experience to what I was afforded this summer: where you not only learn valuable life lessons but either find confirmation or direction in your career plans, your major, and what your goals are.”