Editor's note: Intern Spotlight is a Ball State Daily News series profiling Ball State students and their summer internships. If you have any suggestions as to who we should feature next, send an email to editor@bsudailynews.com.
Going through school and working with Cardinal Communications at Ball State, Rose Flood had a plan. She was set on working the typical 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. job for a public relations agency. But now as the race marketing intern for Hoosier Park Racing & Casino, Flood’s world has “been completely turned upside down.”
“I did not expect this,” said the junior public relations major. “I was really set on doing a regular public relations agency – do the agency life, getting into regular business professional attire everyday, but now this internship has made me rethink what I want to do after graduation.”
Hoosier Park is not like any traditional internship, Flood said. She joined the team in April and will be working as the race marketing intern until November 17.
Flood is responsible for running the park’s social media and promotions with live racing as well as assisting with the multiple events the park hosts during life racing season. When she’s not running around, Flood also gets to work one-on-one with partisans as a racing ambassador.
“I get to talk to the partisans about betting,” Flood said. “It’s a litte bit different but I absolutely love it.
“The best nights are the ones where I get to be a racing ambassador. Even if we are not talking about horse racing, it’s still so fun to be able to meet these people, learn about where they are from, why they’re here … it’s really personal and really fun.”
Before joining the team, the Plainfield native applied to multiple agencies, hoping to find something that both went along with her passion for public relations and interest in working in a fast-paced environment.
Hoosier Park was the perfect fit.
“When I was in my interview and they were talking about how it was a fast paced environment, I thrive in that,” Flood said. “I’m one of those weirdos who actually feels comfortable when there is a lot of work to do. So hearing about how I was going to be on my feet a lot, that actually really made me feel like this something I would want to do.”
Now with only a little over four months to go in her internship, Flood said she is hoping to not only learn new basic skills, but also leave some sort of personal impact for future park interns.
“I want to see what changes I can make that might be lasting – I know I'm just an intern so I am probably not going to change the world with it, but if there is anything I can do to make things easier with how things are run for future interns, I would be happy to do it,” she said.
Flood will be graduating in December, only a month after finishing her internship. Because of her experiences at Hoosier Park, she hopes to explore options involving entertainment, an area she originally never saw herself interested in. She encourages other students to “not count anything out” when looking for potential internships and future careers.
“Just apply for anything and everything because you never know where life is going to take you," she said. "It might not be the path you had in mind for yourself, but you could learn anything from pretty much anywhere.”
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