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Carrie Ostrander, a graduate student pursuing her master's in business administration, interns at the communication department at the Texas A&M Foundation.

Alexis Hinchcliffe, a junior marketing major, and Clint Holland, a marketing graduate student, work at their internships at Hewlett-Packard. Hinchcliffe and Holland work with the company's product and brand marketing.

Not normal go-fers - Aggies spend months interning in Las Vegas, Washington, D.C.

By: Jason Deuterman

Posted: 10/17/07

As night falls and the moon ascends slowly into the sky, an oasis in the desert comes to life. A vibrant aura of fluorescent luminescence floods the streets and envelops the festive vacationer ready to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars. The city awaits anxiously to engulf the monetary outpouring with ease. Yet for an Aggie interning on the Las Vegas strip, a wholly separate impression of a town infamously known as "Sin City" is achieved.

Ally Murray, a senior communication major, has spent most of her life calling Las Vegas home, and last summer she decided tointern in the hospitality industry where the casinos and the hotels lie.

"I've lived there since the first grade and dealt with all of the stereotypes about the town growing up," Murray said. "But Vegas is moving towards a very chic, trendy vibe - a Hollywood vibe - making it the ultimate destination experience."

Murray was a part of the Hospitality Internship Program which works in correlation with the MGM Mirage Corporation, and said that while some interns were involved with only certain properties, her experiences allowed her to remain involved with all the properties on the strip.

"Working for corporate, I would work in the office part time and then work on the properties," Murray said. "We would have a rotation once a week where we would learn about different aspects of the company."

Murray said that this was one of the finer aspects of her internship as it allowed each intern to gain hands on experience of each particular facet of the industry.

"For example, we had a person during the internship who taught us to learn to card count as part of casino surveillance," Murray said. "There is just so much that goes into it. You don't realize how much is involved in a casino - why the carpet is that color or why the tables are that way."

Murray said that the special attention paid to a casino's clientele is beyond what one might imagine.

"When we would work with international clientele, we had a cultural sensitivity class. For example, if you were meeting with Chinese clients, you would always wear red because it is considered lucky," Murray said. "In this industry, you always make sure that your clientele are catered to. The people working on the floor even have to know which direction Mecca is in case they are asked by a Muslim guest needing to pray."

In fact, the notion of not having a full understanding of an industry until experiencing it firsthand is one that David Brucker, a senior political science major, found to be true during his internship in Washington, D.C.

"My internship was with a lobbying firm off of the Hill," Brucker said. "The media portrays lobbying as being evil - big corporations sending out henchman to manipulate congressman. This could not be more skewed."

Brucker said people's perception of lobbying is and will continue to be clichéd.

"I understand that most people are going to think lobbying is Thank You for Smoking," Brucker said. "But lobbying is very essential to the political process. Lobbyists write a lot of the language seen in a lot of the bills out there."

Joe Patranella, a senior agribusiness major who interned for a Republican congressman on Capitol Hill, said an internship in Washington opened his eyes to a world and way of life he never knew existed.

"I was working all the time and getting five-minute lunch breaks," Patranella said with a chuckle. "Though, it was amazing being on the legislative side of everything - I didn't realize it was such an exhausting process. Honestly, it was inspiring to see how [the government] really works."

Brucker said that working in a place where history is both made and comes alive was awe inducing for him.

"History, monuments - you can't go anywhere in the country that has the same depth of history as Washington. You think of all those great people in American history that worked there too," Brucker said.

However, as both Murray and Brucker noted, an internship is not simply about the job alone.

"Past the memorials and museums, (Washington) is much like a college town in the summer," Brucker said. "You can't throw a stone without hitting five people your own age."

Brucker said that the culture and the constant festivities that Washington had to offer during the summer months made the experience an unforgettable one.

"The best time I had was probably the third or fourth weekend [of the summer] when all of the roommates went to a wine festival. We weren't sure that we were going to get there, but we finally put all of our money together and bribed a bus driver to take us out there and when we finally got there.It was like being a little kid going to Disneyland," Brucker said. "It was basically five hours of wine-drinking - we have pictures but I don't even remember the bus ride back."

However, Murray said after growing up in Vegas and then interning in the industry, the idea of spending a night in town amid the chaos of vacationers was not one she was too keen on.

"Growing up around it, you just get desensitized to it," Murray said. "My friends probably benefitted from my job more than I did [by] not having to wait in line for clubs or being able to get into shows."

Nevertheless, the primary source of income for most interns is experience, and Murray was confident that she received plenty.

"I love being able to tell people how to enjoy themselves in Vegas - knowing the best kept secrets," Murray said. "Ultimately it's about the mindset. You have to take everything in and not buy into the hype - take Vegas for all it's worth."