Summer at URBN
Summer at URBN
Working at Urban Outfitters (UO) has been a dream of mine for a very long time. I first became interested in the company back in high school, when I was completely mesmerized after walking into a retail store. During my college career, I was determined to intern for the company.
This year was my second year applying to be an intern at UO and I knew just how bad I wanted it. I was constantly checking the Careers page and put my application in two days after the position became available. I was then lucky enough to attend the Interview Day last December and received my position shorty after in January!
I was very nervous to begin my internship because I knew that this was it, this was my dream, and the stakes were high. I was pleasantly surprised to be welcomed by the sunniest people who have been cheering for the 95 of us since day 1.
In the short 10 weeks I got to work as a Marketing Planning intern on the Digital Creative team where I spent my days sorting through competitor data, updating various marketing calendars, attending meetings, previewing assets for the website & mobile platforms, and assisting the launch of the Urban Outfitters digital storefront in 3 new countries. I have learned a tremendous amount about teamwork, flexibility, organization, time management, and most importantly balance. Everyone at UO is so incredibly smart and hardworking, but everyone also loves to take a break and get ice cream together when Mr. Softee is on campus. And that’s why I think I loved doing what I did, because every day felt different, fresh, and fun!
My team and I have also become incredibly close and I truly enjoyed coming to work every day and chatting with them about hobbies, weekend plans, and the most recent retail trends. My manager did an incredible job making sure that we all touchbase at least once a week to check-in on everyone’s work and give me time to ask any additional questions as well as show my progress on various projects.
Aside from my role, the URBN Talent team has done an incredible job putting together a program of intern events which included Executive Chats, workshops, and get togethers. Through these, I was able to meet and talk to the Presidents of Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters, visit the fulfillment center in Gap, PA, and meet other interns who I now can hangout & keep-in-touch with post-internship.
One of the best parts of the program has been the ability to execute an individual project assigned to my manager and then being able to present it to other interns, managers, the Talent team, and the President of UO – Trish Donnelly (who is absolutely awesome, by the way). With such an expansion of international business as well as the growth of our digital site, I was tasked to create a new way to organize digital marketing priorities. I implemented Google Calendar platform to allow teams to have one go-to place for all of their deadlines and to-dos. In the coming months, the new initiative should replace Excel sheets that tend to be located in different places and use non-matching color codes. This project is the first time in my professional career where I was able to create something that was authentically my own, with the tremendous help from my team.
Overall, this summer has been nothing short of a dream. I am so thankful to have been able to work for such a creative and forward-thinking company that allows its employees to think outside the box every day. I have completely fallen in love with retail (once again) and with Urban Outfitters as a brand! Can’t wait to *hopefully* be back on campus in the coming months.
