Blaine E. Grimes Summer Grant Recipient

Thang Nguyen
Sales & Marketing
A.E. Schwartz & Associates, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

A.E. Schwartz & Associates is a Boston-based management training and professional development firm with offices in New York City. The firm also is ranked as one of the top internship sites in the country by Yale’s Internship Guide.

At A.E. Schwartz & Associates, each intern is given hands-on responsibilities for significant projects that match their unique abilities. And because the firm continues to grow due to the skills, participation, and involvement of each intern, it is guaranteed that interns do not spend the majority of their time on mind-numbing office work.

My primary responsibilities were to:

• Optimize the company’s Web sites, bulletins, advertisements and brochures by using search engine optimization.
• Assist in research on potential business proposals
• Assist in marketing projects, including conducting research on consumer behaviors and market trends.

I hoped that I would be provided with new perspectives and real-business-world experience, given hands-on responsibilities for real projects that are significant to the firm, learn from the supervisor as well as colleagues, and apply all the things I have learned in classes at OWU to real life situations.

I succeeded in accomplishing these goals. My supervisor taught me a lot about how to use certain tools to gain exposure for a product/company in the current competitive market. Also, he assigned me tasks that required effort and responsibility. I learned that in every decision, the person in charge always need to understand the big picture (by conducting research) before going further with any change or strategy. Throughout the summer, I gained a lot of experience and knowledge by working and learning at the same time.

Because A.E. Schwartz & Associates is so small, I was able to see almost every aspect of operating a business. I gained some insights into how a business operates, but also into how the world operates. This is helpful to my plan of opening my own business. In just a short three-month-span, A.E. Schwartz & Associates has definitely helped me grow both professionally and personally.