Taylor Brown is a senior marketing and business management major. Her hobbies include archery and volunteering for Special Olympics. She is a part of the Razor’s Edge Leadership Program and a member of Alpha Kappa Psi co-ed business fraternity, the American Marketing Association, and the Entrepreneur’s Council. Her life philosophy is that she uses the gifts God gave her to build others up, and she hopes to elevate people from the grips of hopelessness and show them God’s love in the process.
I’ve had five internships. I’ve got that bit of being a student down. Diane Klein, assistant director of employer relations and internships in the Office of Career Development jokes that I have a sleeping bag in her office, and a standing weekly appointment, which is half true. My first and my last internships were the most important; the first was where God revealed to me what I should do, and the last was where He showed me how.
As a senior in high school, I jumped into a competitive internship program in an effort to grow up as fast as I could. I chose to intern for a school for children with disabilities, thinking that would help me with my budding career in psychiatry. Fascinated with the human mind, 17-year-old me thought she would save the world by developing life-saving, mind-correcting pharmaceuticals.
Well, you can probably guess what happened, as this isn’t titled “Diary of a Future Psychiatrist.” Tasked with finding and executing a capstone project by the end of my senior year, I took a hard look around the school. I realized something: there were many therapists and psychiatrists working there, but the business was failing. Stuck in a cramped space filled to capacity, the school’s only source of revenue was tuition.
With this in mind, I started investigating how I could help the school see ways it could prepare for a capital campaign — a fancy way of saying a huge fundraiser for something expensive. Long story short, the school used my findings and their own grit to fundraise enough money to get into its own freestanding building with amenities to support the students and grow.
God showed me something big here, and it is a lesson we all should learn: play up your strengths. I might have had a successful career as a psychiatrist, but I can make the biggest contribution to society with my business mind.
So now I knew I wanted to go to school for business. Trouble was, I had applied to all of the colleges as a psychology major — all save NSU. It was the only school I applied to as a business major.
As a South Florida resident, I had witnessed the H. Wayne Huizenga School of Business and Entrepreneurship being built before its opening in 2004. My dad had said, “Huizenga and his friends are going to put together a great school for business students.”
God kept that in my mind for more than seven years for a reason. With this memory probably somewhere in my mind, I did my research, and it turned out that NSU was the best private business school in Florida for me, which suited my needs.
I set out with a mission to use business to empower people economically so that they may have the chance to grow spiritually. I mean, who wants to hear about Jesus when they are starving? I’m not a pastor or a missionary, but I hope to use social entrepreneurship to show people God’s love for them, while making lasting change in their lives.
And this is where my last internship comes into play. The above claims are fabulous to make but I’m 21. What do I know? Through the connections I have in Alpha Kappa Psi, I got the chance to work with a team of corporate entrepreneurs on my last internship summer 2014.
These brilliant individuals innovate to help find new opportunities businesses. Here is where I will learn ideation, innovation and execution of products and services, make connections to learn, and maybe someday start my own business.
Through God’s grace, upon graduation from the business school, I may stay with this team and start my entrepreneurial journey.
I encourage everyone to get internships. Find what you love, your passion, your purpose and play up your strengths.
