This summer, senior midfielder for the Southeast Missouri State soccer team Maggie Pike had an internship in St. Louis with the St. Louis Ad Club. Unlike other students’ summer, Pike had to juggle the responsibility of the internship and training for the upcoming soccer season.

__I saw you had an internship this summer. Could you tell me who it was with and what you did?__

So, it was with the St. Louis Ad Club and it was really neat. It was a great opportunity, it was kind of the first of it’s kind but we went to seven different agencies in St. Louis, and so each week we basically got to live there and were given a project and the projects varied but we presented on Friday. I was with four other interns.

__What type of projects did you work on?__

We had a whole bunch. We made a commercial for one. So, we actually edited it, shot it and then other times we worked for St. Louis Union Station — we came up with a launch for them. So, lots of social media launches and lots of traditional advertising. We had a creative team, so I was the social media manager and content writer.

__What is your major and how do you see this internship helping you in the future?__

I’m a double in [public relations] and sports management, but this internship really helped me because I wasn’t exactly sure where I wanted to go with the PR field and I definitely learned I wanted to be more on the creative side of advertising, which is pretty cool.

__As a student-athlete, how difficult was it to juggle the internship and getting ready for the season?__

Oh, it was very difficult but both sides of them were very understanding. My internship actually let me work online in the middle of the week while I was here working out for the second half of the summer, and then Katie, our weights coach, let me leave Mondays and leave right after practice on Fridays to commute to St. Louis. It was really hard and a lot of time put into it, but it worked out so that’s cool.

__Looking into the soccer season, how does the team look and how do you think you will do throughout the season?__

Today, I was so proud of our team and our freshmen. I thought everybody did pretty good. We came back from behind and our coach said we were pretty resilient. I am proud of everybody, it was great.