Luke Parauda ’15 ran the inquiries email box, receiving close to 80 emails a day.
I worked for Guinness World Records this summer. Although the company is based out of London, I worked at the Americas office which is located in New York. The office only had about 20 people, so it was easy to meet everyone and learn my responsibilities. The office is in midtown Manhattan in a nice location. I ran the inquiries email box all summer but also held many responsibilities in the form of projects. Projects were assigned to me by many different departments, but I mainly did research for marketing, providing market analysis and researching potential clients. Before my internship, I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do although I was pretty confident I wanted to work in publishing. My internship gave me a taste of many different aspects of publishing, including, PR, HR, marketing, research, sales, and some editing. I know which of those I can do really well now am realizing which ones I would want to pursue in terms of a full-time job after 51.
With my internship, I learned that I am a fast learner, often seen as quiet and diligent in an office setting, and organized enough to maintain multiple projects at once. I also learned what an office setting in a place like New York City can be like, and important skills that should translate very well into a real job after I graduate. I learned how to use databases and technology that are crucial to the field of publishing and made lots of important connections across a variety of departments.
Overall, I had a really fun summer both because of the nature of the company I worked for and the fact that I was in a small office that shared a fair number of laughs and challenges both. Among many other things, I ran the inquiries inbox for Guinness World Records this summer, so you might imagine that I got some really weird requests and questions concerning records. One of the funniest that had me laughing at my desk for about ten minutes was an email I got about a record that simply read “My cat drinks its own milk, is this a record?” I shared my moment with the rest of the office, and even the cat-loving lady in the office was laughing. However, there were numerous questions and emails that I just couldn’t answer without directing the questions to someone else. Staying on top of and answering about 80 emails a day was probably the most challenging part of my internship, but also produced some of the most memorable parts of my summer.