Meet Ciara Sikking, senior Public Relations and Mathematics double major, from Buena, NJ (Atlantic County). She shares how her summer internship at Holman turned into a full-time position post-graduation.
In October of last year I sat down with my public relations advisor, Lori Block, to discuss class registration. I did not expect this very routine meeting to land me a full-time job.
In the PR department, the word “internship” is a huge deal, so it did not surprise me when Lori asked if I was looking for one. She suggested that I apply for the Holman Enterprises summer internship program, one I hadn’t even considered applying to due to its notoriously competitive selection.
Three months later I landed an interview and two months after that received one of the 50 positions out of over 500 applicants.
During my time at Holman, I worked in the client relations department and assisted with projects for the company’s most profitable clients including United Rentals and FedEx. Within the first four weeks I conceptualized, programmed and presented a tracker to organize information for United Rentals. Speaking in front of the upper management team was nerve-wracking, but it gave me the chance to utilize the presentation skills I have learned in many of my PR classes.
Aside from my client relations projects, I worked with a team of interns to research and create start-up recommendations for Holman Auto’s mobile 
service initiative. My team and I delivered an exciting presentation to a roomful of company leaders and, as a result, the company decided to move forward with the ideas we presented in our project. It is thrilling to know that the executives loved all of our hard work, especially Mindy Holman, granddaughter of the company’s founder.
Interning at Holman helped me grow in every way possible. It allowed me to mature professionally, gave me the confidence to tackle real-world problems and provided me with impressive projects to add to my portfolio. To add icing on the cake, I recently received a full-time position in the client relations department for after graduation.
I know that I could not have gotten this far without Lori Block and the strong education that I have received over my last three years at Rowan University. I encourage every student thinking about an internship to be bold and never sell yourself short. You can accomplish fantastic things if you just take a chance.
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Story by:
Ciara Sikking, senior public relations and mathematics double major
Photography by:
Alyssa Bauer, senior public relations major