Lope Stars: GCU Students Find Their Purpose Through Internships

At Grand Canyon University students are encouraged to find their purpose. One of the ways GCU helps them to do this is through their Career Resources and their Office of University Internships. GCU’s Career Resources are located all around campus and seek to help students and alumni explore career options, learn best practices on resumes and cover letters, polish interviewing skills and identify job opportunities both on and off campus.

GCU offers hundreds of student worker positions on campus for students to earn money and get experience in their desired job field. GCU’s Career Resources also host an array of events for students to meet with companies from around the state and beyond. One such event is Companies on Campus, where companies can set up booths on campus for student to learn more about the jobs and opportunities available at their company. Connecting with these companies in-person can increase student’s chances of interning with the visiting companies or getting hired in the future!

Office of University Internships

In addition, GCU’s Office of University Internships is student’s one-stop shop for finding internship opportunities. GCU’s Office of University Internships provides programmatic internships that are aligned with student’s field of study, weekly Study Abroad information sessions, internship preparation sessions, online access to internships listings and job and internship fairs. The Office of University Internships works with industry professionals so students can gain real-world knowledge and marketable skills while building their resumes.

Hundreds of students at GCU have already been a part of some amazing internships with companies and organizations such as Amazon, Disney, CBS, Marvel Entertainment, Arizona Cardinals, Make-A-Wish, State Farm, Banner Desert Medical Center, Focus on the Family and the Phoenix Art Museum.

Lope Stars

One student, Landon Pryor has interned with Yano Creative, a design, branding and marketing company, in downtown Phoenix for a little over two years until they recently offered him a part-time position as a web developer. In this position, Pryor builds out designs, sketches logos for clients, updates content and themes and other tasks. Pryor is graduating in 2019 and hopes to join the Yano Creative team full-time after graduation.

Another student, Amber Buzis, worked for Kiterocket as their PR intern, giving her ample experience in the agency world. Amber used the skills she learned at Kiterocket in her job at GCUTV and as Canyon Activities Board’s graphic designer during her senior year at GCU. All of this prepared Amber for her current post-graduate position at Ideas Collide, an advertising agency in Scottsdale. She is currently a graphic design intern for Ideas Collide and working 40 hours a week collaborating with other designers.

Other students have similar students and many have gone on to work for amazing companies, such as Kennedi Martin, class of 2017, who now works for HireStory and gets to travel the country producing, shooting and editing short documentaries for clients.

Next Steps

All this to say, GCU students and alumni are doing incredible work in their community and around the world. Students from all different degrees are making it big and most started by finding an internship related to their field. Internships open lots of doors for students and in a society where more and more people are earning their bachelor’s degree, the job market is becoming increasingly competitive, making it all the more important to make yourself standout when looking for a job.