Career Services Interns of the Year, 2022-23
The Career Services Internship Program is an excellent way for students to be immersed in career advocacy and readiness. Every April, supervisors nominate an intern that exhibited outstanding growth, initiative, leadership and impact during the year. During the 2022-2023 school year, two amazing marketing interns won the hearts of our team! Below is a two-part special to honor these incredible students.
Madeline Kraus
Madeline Kraus is a University of Idaho alum with a bachelors in Marketing, Management and Human Resources, and Modern Language Business in Spanish. She attended U of I between Fall 2019 and Spring 2023 and was a member of the Delta Gamma Panhellenic sorority. She currently works at Paylocity as an account manager.
Madeline was a Social Media and Marketing Intern at Career Services for one year, between Fall 2022 and Spring 2023. Before attending U of I, she was inspired to follow a path in marketing from her high school’s DECA club, where she would compete in business and sales events. “I was really interested in the psychology of marketing things to people... [and] why people buy the things they do,” she said.
In her junior year, she found a position at Vandal Solutions, the student-led marketing firm, as a social media manager, which she later got promoted to the Vice President of Human Resources. While keeping the position, Madeline also joined the Career Services team in the Fall of her senior year.
After the first semester, the Marketing, Communications and Web Specialist for Career Services left the position, leaving the marketing team without a direct supervisor. Though at first the lack of a leader was stressful, Madeline took it as an opportunity to grow and try new things.
“I got to make the position my own,” she said. “My general job was just creating content to promote Career Services [and] share resources [the] Career Services has to offer... I was able to experiment a lot on social media, which was a lot of fun.”
Madeline felt that the freedom of her position improved her skills, since there was little expectation of what not to post. “I was really happy that the team gave me the opportunity to do that,” she said about her creative liberties. “I think I was growing in my creativity a lot.”
In Delta Gamma, she held a position called the Director of DG Dialogues—later, she was the Vice President of Foundation, which allowed her to plan philanthropy events. “To go through that whole process was super rewarding, but also challenging… to coordinate everything,” she said. With her work, Delta Gamma held a week-long philanthropy event to raise $8,000 for charity.
Participating in these positions allowed Madeline to practice her skills in different areas, allowing her experiences to build on one another to make her well-seasoned in her career path. Every good thing might come with an edge, though—Madeline struggled with balancing her busy schedule amidst her hard work.
Madeline joked that her college planner was her “very best friend” and that she couldn’t go anywhere without it. “I would try to keep everything straight by writing it down,” she said. She also talked about staying present in her commitments and giving them her all, pushing distractions and other expectations to the side.
“I think it's not possible to give one hundred percent all the time, but knowing those times when it's needed is a good skill to have,” she said.
Madeline found a link between working at Career Services and being involved in marketing and business. Networking and career development “is all about selling yourself. Whereas marketing is about selling your products.” She said she was able to take what she learned in her marketing classes and apply it to herself, with the help of and sharing an environment with the resources and consultants at Career Services.
Her position in Career Services allowed her to form strong connections with both the team and various people around campus. She utilized the knowledge of our consultants, speaking with Jen Goodwin about her resume and job searching, which she said was “really influential”.
“I feel like [the Career Services internship] really enhanced my education by [giving] hands on experience in my field of study,” she said. “I feel like that's not always something you get… in class.”
Her advice to future Vandals was to take advantage of the opportunities that the University of Idaho provides. “I feel like I was able to have a really good experience in my career field before graduating,” she reflected.
We’re so proud of Madeline and we can’t wait to see where she goes! We know she is more than capable of success, and we’re excited to see where her path takes her.
Addison Thomson
Addison Thomson is a University of Idaho student pursuing a bachelor's in Advertising with a minor in Philosophy, alongside a Social Media Marketing Certificate. She’s attended U of I since Fall 2020 and will be graduating Spring 2024. She’s also a member of the Delta Delta Delta Panhellenic sorority on campus. She currently works at Micael McKenzie Inc Creative as a social media and content manager.
Addison was a Marketing and Graphic Design Intern at the Career Services for two years, between Fall 2022 and Spring 2024. Intrigued by graphic design, Addison’s passions started in high school after taking classes on it. “I really liked it and wanted to do something creative, where I could also potentially do something that would help the world,” she said.
“I did a lot of extracurriculars in high school—I did theater, graphic design, yearbook and the newspaper,” Addison said. For a senior project, she did the marketing and event planning for a fundraiser, which inspired her to do advertising specifically.
At U of I, after working for a year at the Argonaut as a page designer and realizing it wasn’t a fit for her, she went on the job search again. Her position at Career Services inspired her particular interest in social media marketing, since starting her second year at the office, she was primarily in charge of marketing on Instagram.
Her work as the Tri Delta Director of Philanthropy inspired a humanitarian outlook on her chosen career field, since she worked closely with the chapter’s philanthropy organization St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
“That really pushed me to pursue [being] more of an advocate [in the] advertising field,” she said. “I wanted to work with nonprofit organizations and… smaller business, help them build their brand so they don’t go under.”
“Working towards doing good in the world and helping people out is something that I really wanted to do. A lot of people look at advertising as a very negative kind of concept, because they think of it as the big-company commercials that are making millions and millions of dollars and taking away from people—but it can be so much more,” she said. “I think that my choice to pursue that definitely was influenced by my upbringing as well as working with St. Jude in Tri Delta.”
At Career Services, after her supervisor left the position halfway through the first year, she saw it as an opportunity to learn. When the position was filled in Addison’s second year by Kinsey Walt, Addison was excited, since she had worked with Kinsey before as members of the University of Idaho’s Advertising Competition Team.
“We came up with great ideas and I ended up getting more into the social media position,” she said. “Just seeing… [the copywriting intern], me and Kinsey, with all of our different niches and what we were good at was really neat to see.”
“The camaraderie of the team that I was on… helped me develop my professional skills as well as my personal skills. Being able to work with people and navigating different tasks in a team was [valuable],” she added.
Addison reflected on how working with the Career Services allowed her to hone skills she was learning over time, taking the first year of her internship to expand her creativity and her second to apply it to a fresh marketing team and campaign. Her growth and the value of what she learned could not be overstated, showing how her time here gave her the skills necessary to enter the workforce prepared, more than qualified and inspired.
“I would not be as successful as I am without Career Services and all the people in it, and I am eternally grateful for that,” she added near the end of the interview. We are very proud of Addison and all the incredible work she’s done. Watch out for this one, advertising world!
Victoria Kingsmore
Career Services Marketing Intern