Hope Voorhies, a marketing major from Lake Villa, Illinois, chose UW-Milwaukee because its close location to the city meant she would have plenty of options when it came to finding internships.
“Being a business major, there are a lot of us. So, you need to stand out from everyone,” she says.
During her time at UWM, Voorhies did four internships, including at Northwestern Mutual, the Milwaukee Brewers and the Milwaukee Bucks. She was directly connected to most of her internships through her ties at UWM, from meeting a recruiter at a UWM career fair to networking within her business fraternity.
“For my most recent internship, I got an email from UWM that said Northwestern Mutual was hiring a project management intern, so I applied.”
One of the things Voorhies has liked most about the marketing program at UWM is its focus on real-life skills. “We’d be learning something about marketing in class and then I’d end up using it in one of my internships. It really coincided,” she says.
Her best piece of advice for new students is that they should put themselves out there and get involved. “If I hadn’t applied for my first internship at Direct Supply, I wouldn’t have gotten my internships with the Brewers or Northwestern Mutual.”
Something that surprised Voorhies about UWM was how friendly and helpful the faculty and staff are. “I took a calculus class my freshman year and completely failed the first exam,” she says. “I went to my calculus professor’s open office hours, and she took a ton of time out of her day to re-explain and walk through what I’d struggled with. I did way better on my next calculus exam. This was for a large lecture class, so I didn’t expect to get that kind of one-on-one support. But the professors here want to know and help all of their students.”
Voorhies is graduating this semester and already has a job lined up. “My post-grad plans are to work at Northwestern Mutual in their Core Data & Analytics department as a data literacy and upskilling project manager. I got my full-time offer in March!”
