My Summer Internship with the Cohort Cup

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MBA, 2013

Celebrating 1 million Facebook “Likes” for The Today Show

Hot on the heels of Cohort B’s historic Cohort Cup title, I landed my summer internship with NBC News Digital. I have spent my summer with the Cup in Seattle working on ad sales strategy for MSNBC.com, Today.com and three emerging technology sites – Newsvine, BreakingNews and EveryBlock. 

What makes my internship unique is that it is a tandem internship with fellow BU MBA candidate and Cohort Cup champion Olivia Horsfield. Olivia and I were brought in to tackle a list of projects, working together to develop action plans, create sales collateral and help improve the monetization of the emerging sites. The idea of this tandem internship was devised by BU MBA, and our boss, Parag Vaish (GSM ‘03). Working together has been a natural extension of the semester as Olivia and I were teammates throughout the second semester of our first year.

It is amazing how much of the first year curriculum has come to influence the outcome of our internship projects. Beyond the obvious teamwork rapport that Olivia and I built during the semester, we have had to use skills honed in organizational behavior, marketing, quantitative data analysis, and strategy and negotiations (a must-take class).  

Olivia and I also lucked out on when we were working at NBC News Digital. On July 16, NBC announced that it had bought out Microsoft’s share of the joint venture that was our company. Getting an inside glimpse as to how a company prepares for a massive transition and then executes on those plans has been a very exciting and educational experience. 

While Boston was melting under a string of heat waves, Olivia and I got to enjoy the decidedly cool Pacific Northwest. I took the opportunity to visit Vancouver and Portland while Olivia travelled to Levenworth and San Francisco. We went to a Red Sox-Mariners game, traversed the Space Needle, watched fireworks on the Puget Sound and ducked the flying fish of Pike Place Market. We have both really enjoyed our time here, but are excited to get back to Boston to defend the Cup.

Olivia Horsfield (GSM, ’13), Parag Vaish (GSM, ’03), Amy Fox (EDM, ’12), Parker Fox (GSM, ’12), and Ryan Sosin (GSM, ’13) represent BU at a Red Sox-Mariners game at Safeco Field

As a Cohort Cup champion, let me offer a few takeaways from my first year. While it is natural to feel uneasy when you don’t have an internship by Red Sox Opening Day, try to stay calm and focused – a lot of my classmates landed great internships in the waning days of the semester. Second, look for internships in cities you may want to live in after you graduate – it is like taking a city for a test drive. Finally, go to Cohort Cup events and try to beat our first-year MVP Nishant Sharma’s attendance record. 

Ryan Sosin is a rising 2nd Year MBA with experience in collegiate athletics and a life-long dream of being an astronaut. You can find him defending the Cohort Cup at Cornwall’s. Follow @thefosh on Twitter.