Internship Spotlight: Rylie DelVecchio
Summer intern Rylie DelVecchio is working in the UNAR office doing social media work and planning for this October’s UN Day in Rochester. She’s also working with Rochester Global Connections helping organize a picnic for international students at Rochester colleges and universities.
A junior at SUNY Brockport with a double major in social work and sociology double major, Delvecchio talked with Jim Memmott, a UNAR board member, about her internship. Here’s a bit of his questions and her answers.
When you're working on something like this, where's the satisfaction for you?
I think in the long run for Rochester Global Connection, my satisfaction is going to be when I'm at that welcome picnic and I can see all these international students being brought together and forming new relationships and being a bit more comfortable in this Rochester area.
Just wondering. Do you have to buy the hotdogs for the picnic?
I don’t have to buy them, but I have to send requests to Zweigle’s’ to donate them. Yeah, that's me.
Is your internship what you expected?
If I’m being completely honest, I had applied as the community engagement intern, and I was expecting something a lot different. And then things changed, and I'm doing more of a marketing role.
But I think the work I'm doing and being able to get the experience from a nonprofit is very valuable to me. It's important that I saw all the different sides that a nonprofit has. It's certainly teaching me a lot.
What have you gained from working with nonprofits?
Everyone I've worked with has been very open-minded and excited to help me figure out the landscape of nonprofit work. I'd say the relationships I’ve made are going to be my biggest takeaway.
Where do you think you’ll be in five years?
I'm not sure. If you had asked me a year ago, I'd say working in some capacity with kids. But as I continue my education, I start learning a lot more and seeing a lot of different fields that I'd be interested in. I am excited to get opportunities like this that have helped me kind of figure that out a bit.
You're going to college. You're working a job, serving at Texas Roadhouse. Why add an internship?
Once you're out of college, when you start looking for jobs, you're not going to know what you want to apply for if you don't have experiences already to know what you like and don't like.
Last question: The spelling of your first name is distinctive. Do you like it?
It's different. I used to hate it because it was different. But now I love it. I know so many Rileys, and no one has ever spelled it like this, Rylie.
We are grateful for Rylie’s contributions to UNAR and Roc Global Connections. If you want to apply to be an intern for UNAR or one of our community partners, learn more about them, and apply on handshake.
