Aug 29, 2013

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Hey all! My name is Andrew Fenske, and I am a senior marketing major on the men's cross country and track & field teams. I will be posting weekly blogs about the upcoming cross country season! Because the season opener is still a week away, I am going to start things off a little differently... As some of you may or may not know, I had the opportunity to intern with Google this past summer. Needless to say, it was one of the most adventurous, challenging and rewarding experiences of my life!

The program I was involved in is called the BOLD program, and it is the only non-engineering internship that is currently offered by Google. Roles within BOLD range from anything business-related: marketing, finance, people operations, sales, and more. Google does take people from ANY major: English, History, Political Science, Environmental Science, etc. - not just business majors! I happened to stumble across the application while I was searching the Internet and just blindly applied; no major past experience and no contacts within the company. I finally received a confirmation email that I would be interviewing for the BOLD program. After the intense interview process, I finally received the good news. I found out that I would be on the SMB Global Services team and would be working in the Ann Arbor office.

In short, my specific role can be compared to being a consultant for small-to-medium business (SMB) owners. I had phone consultations where I would help said business owners improve their online presence by utilizing some of Google's products -mainly Google AdWords (those ads that show up when you do a Google search). I received phone calls and made proactive phone calls when it came to interacting with advertisers. The summer began with east coast orientation in the New York City office! I have never been to the city, so it was such a great experience.

The amount of useful life and business knowledge that I gained from working with Google is so vast. My role helped me strengthen not only my communication skills, but also my ability to think creatively on the drop of a hat and how to be entrepreneurial. The culture itself was a great fit for me since it was very quirky, open and just extremely friendly. I also took away the basic office courtesies. I was working on a full-time schedule, making it pretty challenging to get in the required summer training that every cross country athlete needs. Every day I was out of bed by 5:30a.m., running anywhere from eight to ten miles before work to beat the heat. Google always hosts such fun activities after work (Pirate Themed Canoe Races, Man vs. Food competitions, drag shows, bands performances, and more!), which also enticed me to run early in the A.M.

The 11-week program flew by, and before I knew it, my time in Ann Arbor had come to an end. However, my time and relationship with Google is not over yet. During the course of the internship, I was informed that I was selected to be Loyola University Chicago's Google Student Ambassador. Being selected as an Ambassador entailed flying out to the Mountain View office (Google's HQ) the day after my internship ended for training. As an Ambassador, I will serve as the representative for Google at Loyola and will be the person-of-contact for any questions that students have about Google.

If you have any specific questions about my time at Google, or would like some insight on how you can apply for an internship, just let me know and I would be more than willing to help you out!

Until next time, friends! Go Ramblers!

- Andrew