We are very excited to intoduce two current Fox School of Business student bloggers to Opportunity Knocks. 

Abigail Ricarte and Joseph Norton

Both Abigail and Joe have agreed to give you a student prospective on their internship and job searches.  We hope their insight, successes, and excitment will be helpful to all our students.  Please feel free to ask them questions, comment on their posts, and gain some valuable feedback from those who are currently going through their search for the PERFECT CAREER!

Please read their bios and allow them to introduce themselves!!

If you are interested in sharing some of your insight into your personal job search please contact the CSPD office!

Allow me to introduce myself and let everyone know alittle about me. This is Joe Norton.
I’m a transfer student from Kutztown and I’m currently wrapping up sophomore year, the 2nd semester of my first academic year at Temple University.

I am an Entrepreneurship major - I love to explore business opportunities, and want to start my own company. I run a few websites and write a bit for my College Student Health & Fitness blog: Student Fitness. I am a member of Toastmasters, the public speaking organization, and the webmaster & a member of ESA (Entrepreneurial Student Association).

Besides academics and business, I’m also into athletics. I played football all thru high school and continue to run and lift even though I do not play football in college. I also love many forms of music. Ranging from Ska, Swing, Rock, Reggae, Rap to Techno. Basically everything but country. I also am a big fan of stand-up comedians. My favorite tv shows are: COPS, Intervention, Daily Show, Colbert Report, & Futurama. Favorite Movies: Office Space, Jim Carrey in anything, any inspiring sports story.

I’m currently undergoing my first search for a serious business internship. I have a 2 prong attack in my strategy. One prong is the Finance sector - I’m open to working in a Finance firm because I am interested in finance and investments. The Second prong is Small Businesses - Given my proclivity to entrepreneurship I am very interested in working with a small company, especially startups where I feel I can really contribute and mean more to the company. Either way, I’m looking forward to the adventure of it all and I’m going to do everything I can to try and line up my dream job for the summer.

Hello everyone, my name is Abby Ricarte. This is my first ever student entry for the new CSPD blog. Exciting!

I am currently an undergraduate student at the Fox School majoring in marketing. I plan on graduating in January 2009.

Every time someone asks me what I plan to do after I graduate, I say “I have absolutely no idea!” I suppose that’s only half true. I know what I would love to do- it’s just a matter of realizing that vision. At this juncture in my college career, I’m trying to figure out how to make a realistic plan after graduating that would somehow encompass my dreams- cliché and cheesy that may sound.

My passion is music. My main interests are design and technology. And I absolutely love my major. Now, to find a career that includes all four of those elements would be ideal. I’m also interested in e-commerce and non-profit organizations- contradictory to say the least.

Admittedly, I am one of those people who really do listen to everything. I am a music junkie and frequent many review sites and audio blogs daily: my favorites include Brooklynvegan and Soul-Sides. For music industry news, I go to Coolfer and Billboard.biz. (I guess that’s my tip of the day. If you are interested in an industry, do what you can and be immersed in it- read read read!) My morning reading material consists of the aforementioned sites as well as Digg, the Huffington Post, Fast Company, and Wired.

I host a show called Beatcakes on Temple’s only student run radio station, WHIP, which showcases my favorite tracks of the week and random ramblings. I am also currently the vice president of TU Philippine-American Council, a cultural organization very near and dear to my heart. Earlier this year, I joined MEISA (Music and Entertainment Industry Student Association).

My first internship was at a small independent film company in New York City called Priority Films. I was a part of a team that provided entertainment marketing and promotion at a grassroots level for three of the company’s socially conscious films.

I’ve since interned at two major record companies, Sony BMG and EMI. At Sony BMG, I was a marketing intern for their distribution company, RED, which is amongst the top major distributors for the independent sector. This past summer, at EMI (which has now merged with Universal Music Group), I again was a marketing intern under its distribution company, Caroline.

I’m just giving you a few tidbits for now. Through this blog, I will definitely elaborate on my past experiences as well as take you on my current journey- the ups and downs, the good and the bad. I’ll try not to leave anything out. Enjoy!

Feel free to email me with any questions: abigail@ricarte.net