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Wood Makes Most of Grand Rapids Area Internship with Gordon Food Service

Ferris State University students gain valuable work experience through internships. Internships also can confirm or redirect career decision-making, provide marketability, develop people skills and enhance classroom learning. Many academic programs require one, but the experience is encouraged regardless to provide students with a better understanding of what will be expected of them in the workplace.

Many students are participating in myriad internships this summer. Meet: Katie Wood

Katie WoodShe is: A senior from Grand Rapids, Mich. studying Business Administration on the Ferris State University Grand Rapids campus.

Internship: Wood is a Marketing Assistant for Gordon Food Service, specifically working with their U.S. and Canada Chemical Solutions and Beverages.

What she does: Her biggest job is “New Item Set-Up”. She does the back work to create the item and get it activated. She also does a lot of projects for her adviser, one of the biggest projects is Data Cleansing. Any item that is named wrong or classified wrong, she makes sure they are corrected. She also collects Material Safety Data Sheets for their website, which has been a long task. She is growing in her position every day, and enjoys every second she has.

What she learned: Excel is something that she learned a lot about. Every class that she took including Excel gave her basic knowledge of it, but there is so much she didn’t know. Whether she’s working with formulas or finding a short cut, Excel has become a big part of her job. Excel has a lot to it and has learning everything about it on the fly.

How Ferris helped: A big part of her classes have provided a great deal of professionalism, and that rubs off on her so that she appears professional. The public speaking class she took has helped her with speaking “on-the-fly” whether it’s in meetings or anything else.

Her future plans: Wood hopes that she could stay with Gordon Food Service once she graduates. She is hopeful that she can grow within the company and is excited for the opportunity it comes with. There is a lot of pride being at Gordon Food Service and that is something that Wood really enjoys.