Gerard Toscani '15 @ AT&T

I had such an incredible experience at my externship in Bedminster this week. Before I dive into the details of the week, I’d like to extend a special thanks to Jack Duffy and the Career Development Center for making all of this possible. Jack’s willingness to host a handful of Gettysburg undergrads during one of the busiest points of his year reflects the strength and commitment of our Gettysburg Network.

We kicked off the week with a general tour of the facility and it was really neat to see the varying forms of infrastructure across the company’s departments. For example, in Jack’s area of the building there were more cubicles and offices, but in the Inventive Science and Collaboration Department the office setting had a much more organic feel to it. As an OMS major, I learned about company infrastructure and its reflection of corporate culture in Organizational Theory, so it was really cool to tie that into our experience.

Following the tour, Jack introduced us to Scott Martin who served as the Senior Client Services Project Manager for the Democratic National Convention. This session really gave me a deeper appreciation for the resources and effort that it takes to support such a widely broadcasted event. With thousands of people sending videos or text messages, surfing the web or making phone calls simultaneously there is very little margin for error on AT&T’s behalf.

We followed Scott’s session with a telepresence meeting that was hosted by Jim Jacen and Jessica Taylor out of Atlanta, Georgia. Jim and Jessica are in charge of AT&T’s college recruitment so it was really helpful to seek their advice on the application process. They also fielded questions about the Business Sales Leadership Development Program and provided a general background of the other non-sales oriented career paths through AT&T. Aside from the content of our meeting, I was most impressed by the sophistication of the telepresence technology.

After sitting in on the telepresence session our day was further enriched with a tour of the Global Network Operations Center. The GNOC was truly something out of a movie. Between the actual tour and the enormous display of real time network data, I walked out of there in awe. In the following days we were met by a variety of AT&T executives like Mike Downey, Brendan Floyd and Cathy Martine-Dolecki to name a few. We also touched based with several recent Gettysburg graduates who were more than happy to offer their support in the coming year.

I am truly thankful for this experience and the time and effort that it took for our host to put it all together. This externship is just one of the many opportunities that our Career Development Center offers for Gettysburg College Undergraduates. I’m looking forward to the upcoming school year and urge everyone to take advantage of the many opportunities and resources that our CDC has to offer!