What was the most valuable thing about your intern experience?

I was really glad to have this internship experience. prior to this internship I was always curious to what the corporate fashion world was like and if it would be a great fit for me. I know now that the visuals department is the most exciting department of a company because you're not coped up at your desk all the time, you get to do field work and the best thing about is you get to create windows for the stores, which is the fist thing consumers see and it is the deciding factor on whether or not to enter the store. I was really lucky because I got to work on all the stores for BCBG from factory all the way up to Herve Leger. I was able to see the difference from doing the visuals for the discount goods and for the high end goods. I have to admit the drive to places was quite tiring at the end of the day but that is what the employees do and they seemed happy doing it, even if they had to drive to places that was more than 60 miles from their home.

How might CSULB and your department better prepare you for a future internship?

I think it would be great for CSULB and the fashion department to have previous interns sit in the fashion classes as a guest speaker to talk about their experience with the company they interned for. This will help students in deciding if that internship is the one for them. This will help students learn about the company's work ethic, duties and responsibilities for interns and what is expected from interns.
Another great idea is for the career development center to have a one day seminar for each internship that is available for students. This will help students choose what company is right for them.

What are three things you learned from your internship that you will be able to use in your future career?

the three things I learned that I will be able to use for my future career are:
1. Always be on time or even earlier, I was able to have more opportunities than the other interns because I was always 10- 20 minutes early. One time I got there 20 minutes early and they brought me to their 10:00 a.m. meeting which was a preview of the next season's collection. I was so happy to be there because that meeting was top secret stuff and I felt great that my supervisor trusted me enough to bring me along.
2. The second thing I learned is to task yourself good and always make sure that you're helping an employee in your department with a task if your supervisor didn't need you to do anything. If your department didn't need help, go next door to the next department and see if they do.
3. The last thing I learned is to be polite and kind to everyone because you never know who you may run in to in the future, especially with this job market.

What are some of your duties and responsibilities as an intern? How are interns supervised? Is there an established intern training plan in place?

As an intern at BCBG your duties and responsibilities change on a daily basis. When you come in for the day, you go to your supervisor first and ask what they need help with. If they do not have any tasks for you, you basically go around the department asking the employees if they need help with anything. For this company there is no established training plan for interns. This company expects you to task yourself well every time you come in. This company does not like to see interns starring off into space on their desk or worse on Facebook or doing other things on the web.

If someone was asking you for advice on whether or not to intern at your site, what would you tell them and why?

Before starting my internship at BCBG Max Azria; I was told by some people that it was not a good company to intern with. Supposedly; the company was disorganized and highly judgmental on your physical appearance. I was surprised to see people dress more laid back on my first day at the corporate head quarters in Vernon, CA. It was not mandatory to wear a suit or to dress in business professional attire. Right off the bat; the comment that the company was highly judgmental on appearance wasn't exactly true. As long as you presented yourself well then you shouldn't worry about them judging your appearance. The other comment on the company being disorganized is true but what I learned is that when you're in a creative environment it's hard to be organized. What I mean by that statement is when the visual team and I went out to the field (meaning, visited the retail stores), the initial plan to set up the store always changed because you had to work with what you had. I believe this is how people misconstrued the company's take on organization. The one thing I strongly advice to those who would like to intern with the company is that you have to know how to communicate with your boss in terms of what the task will be the next day, where you will meet and what time because it can change at times and this usually results in a misunderstanding and miscommunication between parties. In the end, if you like working in a fast paced environment, not so organized but fun environment then I highly recommend that you intern with the Visual Department at BCBG.