Congrats, you won! Now...go do it again...but for more people

Okay, recap, post 2. The next thing I wanted to tell you about was our Internship Presentations. To get credit for doing our internship this summer (yes, you can get credit for making money), we had to make a presentation about our experience with our company - what our responsibilities were, what learning objectives we set, whether we'd accomplished them, and so on. In true Walton style, they made these presentations competitive. The class was split across six rooms, with about five people assigned to a room. Each room had two or three judges who evaluated each presentation, and the student with the highest score won the room and moved on to the second and final round to be held the next week (i.e. our reward for winning was MORE work and stress...oh well)

Now, I didn't take credit for my internship (something about trying to take too many hours...who me? Never!), but, since I'm a bit of an over-achiever (and a little too competitive for my own good), I did the competition anyway. I ended up winning my room (yay!)...which means I got to participate in the final round the next week. This round was a bigger deal considering the Career Center (who organized the whole thing) invited fifteen judges and had us present in this huge auditorium on a stage...see?

We found out that day who the top four was (I made that cut, too!), but we won't find out until tonight what rank we go (i.e. first, second, etc). The top four are guaranteed a trophy, though, so that'll be fun.

What's tonight, you ask? Well, it's the final portion of our internship review. We all (even those that didn't place in the presentation competition) have created posters detailing the highlights of our internship experience. We have a networking event tonight at the Alumni House, and there will be people from tons of different companies coming to check out our posters. We get to stand there, look pretty, and talk to everyone about what we did. It should be a fun evening. There will be pictures and such available soon, so check back!

I'm gonna keep this entry short ('cause I have to go prettify myself for the event tonight), but I'll talk about one more of the things I mentioned earlier, the networking lunch with the Arkansas Executive Forum. After our first round of presentations, we were all invited to have lunch with the AEF, a group of execs from around the area that meets twice a year on the U of A campus. We all gave our "elevator pitches" (speeches that define who you are and where you're going with your life but that are short enough to be given on an elevator ride), then spent lunch talking with those in attendance. Walton always has such great networking opportunities like this, which is one of the MANY reasons I love this school.

So, that's about it for today. I have to go get ready for tonight, but I'll take pictures and let you all know how it goes! (fingers crossed, right? Thanks). 'Til then, readers. Happy Monday!