The Competitive Advantage: Brian Porter takes the extra step towards career success!

Laura Arneson

Document Type

News Article

Publication Date

1-27-2016

Campus Unit

College of Business & Public Administration

Abstract

Junior, Operations and Supply Chain Major and Leadership Minor, Brian Porter started early in his career preparation by applying for summer internships, researching career paths, and engaging in interview practice tools at the Pancratz Career Development Center. When starting college at UND, Brian took the initiative to research career opportunities to best choose his course of study based on job placement and job security. Brian also visited with companies at his first career fair to see what fields had the best job opportunities. Through this process Brian decided to pursue a degree in Supply Chain Management. “Supply Chain interested me because it involves all aspects of business,” said Brian.

Originally from Waconia, MN, Brian comes from a legacy of family attending the University of North Dakota, to include both of his parents and his two sisters. Brian’s older brother attended the University of Wisconsin – Stout, and was an operations and supply chain major which sparked Brian’s interest in this degree. Brian also was able to hear more about this field from his brother who currently works for Post Cereal. Brian said that his older brother gave him good advice and shared with him the importance of having an internship. This advice prompted Brian to start early in October to begin seeking out internship opportunities for the summer of 2016.

To start this process, Brian stopped by Career Services on campus where he received support in developing a rough draft of his resume. Career Services then recommended that Brian visit the Pancratz Career Development Center (PCDC), inside the College of Business and Public Administration. Continuing to take advantage of all opportunities, Brian scheduled an appointment with Pancratz Career Development Center Director, Kathy Lund.

When visiting the PCDC, Kathy and Brian discussed the topic of what to do in an interview, reviewed his resume, and also explored various companies to seek out summer internship opportunities. Kathy recommended Textron as a company for Brian to look at. Textron is a fortune 500 company and one of the world’s best known multi-industry companies. When attending the career fair Brian had the opportunity to meet up with Textron and do a preliminary interview on the spot. He was then selected to move on to the second round with a phone interview and afterword’s received an offer for an internship in summer 2016.

Brian gladly accepted the offer and will relocate to Wichita, Kansas for the summer working primarily with Textron Aviation branch from May – August. Through the Textron internship program, interns are provided with a housing stipend and suggested living arrangements for apartment rentals or options to live in the dorms at Wichita State.

All interns selected for the program are linked together through an internship page with a community of approx. 270 interns from all around the country. Through this community page, Brian was able to connect with another intern looking for a summer roommate who is a business student at Miami of Ohio. The two of them quickly found they had a lot of common interests and decided to be summer roomates.

When asking Brian about any tips he would give to other students interested in exploring internships he said, “Start early and take initiative to get ahead of the pack, work with what UND has to offer. I can’t say enough about the resources that are available on campus. I utilized anything that was available to me,” said Brian. “I have already gained so many useful tools at UND and it has been the best years of my life.”

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