By Katie Stobbart (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: May 8, 2013
Young job-seekers often find themselves between a rock and a hard place: employers want to hire people with experience in the field, but students cannot get experience in a field unless employers hire and train them.
Recognizing this, the Abbotsford Entertainment and Sports Centre (AESC) and the Abbotsford News (along with a number of other local businesses) have partnered to create a contest, which exclusively targets UFV students as contestants competing for a summer internship at the AESC. Formerly named The Intern, the contest is now called The Freshman.
Over the course of the contest, 20 students will work in pairs with local business sponsors to design a marketing plan, a full-page newspaper ad and a minute-long commercial. Each team also works with a charity to organize a fundraiser.
UFV students and the general public are invited to vote against teams they want to fire. By the end of the contest two months from now, a single winner will be announced. The prize is the AESC internship, plus $5000.
“The competition is rough,” contestant Chainelle Stanley admits, after meeting the other contestants and being assigned partners and sponsors on April 29. “There were teams who were open and had fun … but the majority were focused. They were having fun, but the atmosphere was definitely competitive.”
Stanley and her partner Diego Barreto will be working with Jag’s MJM Furniture, a family-run business in Abbotsford. Stanley is an English major and philosophy minor who runs a small business through the Abbotsford Flea Market.
“Every individual I am up against has skills and knowledge that I don’t have. Diego is highly skilled in music and filming, which I know nothing about,” Stanley says. “I am go, go, go. I am hoping my unique perspective and love of organizing events plays out in my favour.”
Each contestant has a blog on storify.com, and some have already begun to document their progress in the first week of competition.
The ads and commercials each team creates will also be available for the public to view. Voting is done online, and each IP address has 10 votes per day, each vote counting against (not for) a team.
The contest itself provides invaluable experience for students, Stanley says.
“I have learned how to compromise and work on the spot,” she notes. “Our sponsors have been open and patient with Diego and I figuring things out in a short time. This competition offers experience and a solid network I hope to apply to the rest of my life.”
This is the third year that the contest will run. You can support your favourite competitors by following their progress through the “AbbyNews” and “The Freshman” pages on Facebook. Updates will also appear in the Abbotsford Times, and through contestants’ individual Facebook, Twitter and blog pages. Judges will also note levels of support for businesses and charities involved in the contest, which can help contestants who make it to the top six.
