Intern Spotlight: Crystal Jiao

Name: Crystal Jiao

Major/Minor: International Business, Computer Science minor

Class: Alpha Epsilon

Position: Social Media Graphic Design Intern

Company: DocuSign

Location: San Francisco, CA

Describe your internship in one sentence.

My internship is fast-paced, creative with limitation, and provides an opportunity to learn.

What does your day-to-day look like?

I go into office, say hello to manager/team, receive today's priority tasks - usually something involving storyboarding, graphic design, or motion design - and get to work. Occasionally I will have random new priorities come up where I need to finish within the hour or so since social media is pretty fast paced and can change easily. I get lunch around 12 either going out into the city or hanging inside at one of the kitchens. After lunch I continue to work on my assigned tasks and get off around 5.

What is your favorite part of the company culture?

There's great work life balance - everyone is out of office by about 5pm. Its understood that we have things going on outside of just work so taking days to work at home or leaving office early for some sort of appointment are all readily accepted and seen as no issue.

How has Delta Sigma Pi and being VP of Marketing prepared you for your internship?

In the real world of business, most people won’t come up to talk to you. You’ll have to be the pro-active person - especially when you’re new - and I think Delta Sigma Pi helps with that. Without realizing it, we develop our socializing skills (especially in a professional setting) through our pledging process and we learn about formalities and etiquette when dealing with “higher ups."

Being VP of Marketing also helped me in the sense that I became a little more organized and better at planning out my marketing strategies or timelines. This is something that I continue to do/work on with my current internship. I was also able to familiarize myself with our social media channels and understand better how to use them to represent us as an organization/business.

What is the most valuable takeaway you’ve gained from your internship?

The most valuable takeaway from my internship so far was realizing that having an end goal for my internship - whether it be a personal goal or professional goal - is very important. Currently my position deals mostly with graphic design and motion design, but I am trying to move more towards UX design/visual design. Through networking, talking to my manager, and being proactive, I have made friends in the UX design team and hope to strengthen these connections and hopefully be able to either learn more about UX Design within my company or even turn it into a return offer for that department rather than my current department.

Do you have any advice for people who want to pursue an internship or career path in this field?

Always be proactive and ask for help, connections, introductions. Also, don’t be afraid of a little challenge - it will help you grow much much more. I guess also make sure you have a portfolio!