Konrad Neptun '17 @ AT&T

My name is Konrad Neptun and I just completed my externship week at AT&T in Bedminster, New Jersey.  Prior to this experience, I was unsure of how impactful this externship would be on my overall Gettysburg experience.  However, now that I have completed my externship week, it is safe to say that it has opened many new doors for me.  For example, I was exposed to new fields such as the Internet of Things, which is something that I did not know existed prior to this week.  I had the opportunity to meet with many different employees and gain valuable career advice from both entry level and very successful executives.  Also, the exposure that I gained about the telecommunications field is something that I will undoubtedly take with me for the future.  When looking back at the externship, I tried to get as much exposure as possible in hope that I could simply learn as much as possible.  One of the most interesting experiences from this past week was visiting the Global Network Operations Center for AT&T.  This is the place where they monitor and control the entire network and seeing this in person blew me away.  Also, it was fascinating to see from a business perspective how AT&T works.  Personally, I had only witnessed AT&T from a consumer perspective and seeing it from the other side really opened my eyes to how much the company does and offers outside of mobile-to-mobile connectivity.  An example of this is when we met with an employee who talked about how connectivity to the network and overall business solutions plays such an important role in AT&T’s yearly revenue.  My host, Jack Duffy, talked to us a lot about how his role in planning the conventions for both the Republican and Democratic national parties plays into the company.  All of this exposure was fascinating to me and I learned so much about the entire field.  All in all, this externship provided me with the opportunity to experience an industry that I was interested in.  I learned many valuable networking tips and by meeting with many executives and hearing their advice, I feel much more confortable with networking going forward.  Therefore, I am grateful for this experience and am looking forward to using these new skills when I am abroad and eventually back on campus in the spring.