But wait... work? Yes, work. For the first time in my life I actually worked over a summer break from school. As an undergrad at Davidson, I played baseball and goofed around with hourly jobs coaching basketball and "red-shirting" at a bar. This summer, however, being older and having loans and real responsibilities, it was necessary to work a real job. That job was as a summer intern in the corporate strategy group at Mattel. I like to tell people that I played with Barbie all summer, but in reality I barely saw a doll this summer. Working in the corporate strategy group, I was relatively removed from the brands on a day-to-day basis. In fact, my two individual projects had nothing to do any toy brands whatsoever. My first project was doing research on digital revenue trends in conjunction with a potential acquisition our M&A team was investigating. My second project involved benchmarking our Investor Relations department against our peer group and making recommendations about the size and responsibilities of our IR team.
It was a good summer. I enjoyed the projects I worked on and the people on my team. And Mattel is a great company to work for. Plus, on my second to last day, the Senior VP of my group made me an offer to join the firm after I graduate from business school. Its a great offer to have and I'm excited I got it, but at this point I'm still undecided on what I will do. My plan is to at least take a look at some of the other opportunities out there through on-campus recruiting. I don't need give Mattel an answer until December, so I've got some time to figure things out.
One of the nice little perks about Mattel is all of the free stuff they like to give away. Now, I'm not sure if they just do this for the interns or if the full-time employees get the same giveaways, but I walked away with 11 free toys and games after 11 weeks of work. Included in my take are four Hot Wheels cars, three board games and a money clip.
