My Intern Experience at The Renaissance: By Leila

Picture this: you’re about to start your senior year of college. You’re excited yet nervous; you have one more year of having school be your life until your true life begins. You’re thinking about how to get started. Should you start applying to jobs now? Maybe an internship would help you feel more prepared.

You mention all these thoughts and concerns to your roommate and best friend, Emily, over a cup of coffee. “My boss is actually looking for an intern for the fall,” she tells you, ever so casually. “I’ll send you the link to apply!”

A few days later, you have an interview at The Renaissance with Tommy. You are greeted by him and Emily sitting behind a big desk, smiling from ear to ear. The interview was going well when Tommy asked, “Now, of course, I know you two are good friends. How will I know that work will still get done here?”

“Oh, don’t worry,” I replied. “As long as we’ve known each other and been roommates, we’ve always had classes together where we work with each other very well. We will get things done.”

Apparently, that is what they wanted to hear. I was to start the following Monday!

The next few months have started to all blur together now. I spent my time going through past wedding albums to create good posts for the Instagram and Facebook pages, I came up with blog ideas and wrote for the website, kept track of social media engagement, brainstormed ideas to get more traffic to visit the social media pages, and helped my new boss, Emily, reach out to past clients for feedback or any usable content.

I could not have asked for a better internship experience this semester. The two of them always checked in with me to make sure that I was happy with the work I was doing and satisfied with the tasks I had been given. Before starting here, they had asked what field of public relations I’d like to go into, and made sure that the work I did here lined up with my interests. After a month I was well into the swing of things at The Renaissance and so excited for the opportunities that were to come.

One of those, of course, was to go with The Renaissance on a business trip to the big Wedding MBA convention in Las Vegas, Nevada! Emily and I were assigned to be volunteers at the conference during the day, and at night when we had free time, our boss made sure that we had all the great experiences of Vegas. He showed us Casear’s Palace, all the lights on The Strip, and a good portion of Fremont Street, too! Emily and I were absolutely in awe the entire time; neither of us had even been there before!

Even at the conference, if Emily and I had time between volunteering shifts, our boss Tommy made sure we took advantage of being there, and sent us to lectures and seminars regarding each of our own interests. We would meet up for lunch and talk over everything we had learned. I remember the three of us eating lunch, catching up, and telling myself how thankful I should be to have this kind of experience with an internship!

Now in December, looking back, I know I will truly miss spending my time here and also loving everything I’ve learned. I had never worked closely with an event venue, but now I know all the hard work and dedication that goes into running and planning events like The Renaissance does. They don’t have all those amazing reviews on The Knot and Wedding Wire for no reason!

Working here and having this job will always hold a special place in my heart. I’ll forever hold Tommy (and the entire team at The Renaissance) responsible for giving me the best internship experience I could have asked for; only from the pure kindness in his heart. 

-Leila at The Renaissance