McKenna Hardy
Language and International Business, BA
About the Internships
Every major at Clemson has some form of an internship and/or Co-Op requirement in order to graduate. I have completed the Language and International Business (LAIB) 140 hour internship requirement with experiences to spare. Over the past few semesters, I have completed multiple internships which have each been different and provided a window into various industries. I have included below two sections: 1. a reflections essay written in Japanese after a virtual summer internship with a Japanese company, and 2. a timeline of the internships along with descriptions of the company, my specific role, and a link to the company's site if you are interested in learning more.
Post-Internship Reflection
The secondary component of the LAIB internship is a reflection essay, written in the target language describing the company, your role, and the overall experience. I elected to complete the summer internship with a Japanese company and so the reflection essay is written in Japanese. In addition, the reflection has a sub-experience incorporated into the summary because I was simultaneously working as a part-time Japanese translator for a company in Charleston.
After both the Manzanita and Nexans internship(s), I wrote a summary/reflection paper describing the experience in Japanese. The paper is organized into 6 sections: 紹介("sho-ka-i"; introduction), 会社("ka-i-sha"; company info), 役割("ya-ku-wa-ri"; role/duties), 分析("bu-n-se-ki"; analysis), 結論("ke-tsu-ro-n"; conclusion/overall summary), 引用("in-yo"; citations) If you would like to read it, click on the PDF below.
Additional Internship Experience
January 2022 - Present
August 2021 - December 2021
July 2021 - August 2021
May 2021 - August 2021
January 2021 - May 2021
Fortis
In January 2022, I started as a Global Travel Intern with Fortis. Fortis is a growing elite global travel firm, with the US office being located in Greenville, SC; other global offices are located in Hong Kong, India, and a new office will be located in Nevada coming soon. As an operations intern, I have the opportunity to work with all departments. For a majority of this semester, I have focused my time in working alongside the accounting team and working on the backend to monitor, file, and process invoices for Fortis clients and partners. Recently, and in addition to my billing responsibilities, I have turned my attention towards shadowing the front end of the operations team by learning and observing dispatch and reservations/confirmations.
You can check out the Fortis site using the following link: https://fortis.co/
Clemson
For the fall 2021 semester, I worked with the Campus Reservations & Events (CRE) department as the Student Accounting & HR Manager through Clemson's University Professional Internship and Co-op (UPIC) program. The UPIC program helps to match students with paid internships directly with the university. My position gave me the opportunity to get first hand experience with the events industry. Having worked with the department as operations staff (duties include, but not limited to: managing classroom and event spaces, event setups, troubleshooting basic technological issues), the transition was almost seamless since I was already familiar with the computer systems used and the staff. My main responsibility revolved around the billing and financial side of reservations in CRE spaces. This involved cross checking events with post event notes to check and see if additional charges need to applied, contacting clients with specific questions if needed, sending out invoices to clients in a timely manner and processing any payments that came through. I would also help out with coordinating times for perspective hire interviews with our lead student managers and full time staff, file new hire paperwork, and help with any other administrative tasks.
For additional information on CRE spaces and other info, you can check out the site using the following link: https://www.clemson.edu/studentaffairs/cre/index.html
Nexans
Nexans is a global cable (land and sea) manufacturer, with plants all across the globe.
This opportunity was a temporary and short-term position more so than an internship, however, it was a great experience and I wanted to share it with you. The plant in Charleston is relatively new compared to its sister locations around the world. In the summer of 2021, Nexans brought over workers from the other plants to help get operations up and running, two of which were from Japan. Through a temp-agency, I accepted the offer, and as it turns out, the other translator was a Clemson graduate in 2017. We staggered our schedules so that neither of us would be working a full 12+ hour shift, and depending on the schedules of the Japanese workers. There were a few times where googletranslate came in handy (especially with industry-specific terms), however, majority of the time we were able to properly communicate with the Japanese workers directly and as a go-between with the American workers.
You can check out the Nexans site using the following link: https://www.nexans.us/
Manzanita
Manzanita Intelligent Marketing (Manzanita) is a a consumer psychology-driven platform consultancy company based in Tokyo, Japan. Manzanita's goal is to provide clients with real-time, psychology based and data proven suggestions on how to better promote or advertise a product. From May to August, I worked as a remote intern working with the marketing research team. I did individual trend research using various online tools and kept up with news stories in relation to the brands and/or companies we were working with at the time, and presented these findings in a weekly meeting with my supervisor. I would also participate in weekly briefing meetings with the entire team to go over what everyone is working on. One of my favorite parts of these meetings was the presentation of new words or phrases related to research marketing & psychology (in both English and Japanese).
You can check out the Manzanita site using the following link: https://www.mnzt.io/en/
Upstate International
Upstate International is a non-profit organization based in Greenville, SC. Upstate International provides the Greenville and Upstate area with programs and events promoting international and cultural exchange. One of their largest events of the year is Salsa at Sunset, a three-part summer event of Latin music and dancing. Salsa at Sunset offers live dancing, bands, and works with the community to promote local business. Upstate International also offers foreign language courses taught by native speakers. As an Internal Affairs intern, I was responsible for reviewing and publishing staff approved content on various platforms, including weekly newsletters, along with other administrative tasks. I also assisted with organizing and updating the internal resource and connections lists to ensure that all contact information was accurate.
You can check out the Upstate International site using the following link: https://upstateinternational.org