Meet Zan­der, one of the interns for the Bright Foun­da­tion. Zan­der is a junior, dou­ble-major­ing in Dig­i­tal Media Jour­nal­ism and Com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Zander’s favorite way to waste time is watch­ing Sur­vivor because he finds it fas­ci­nat­ing how the dif­fer­ent rela­tion­ships and decep­tions form. He also loves spend­ing time with his dog and writ­ing in his jour­nal. Scroll to read Zander’s inter­view to dis­cov­er some­thing he has learned out­side of class that has to do with rela­tion­ships with oth­ers and to learn about his role as an intern!

Why did you decide to apply for this internship?

It hon­est­ly was some­thing I thought about awhile ago. I knew I had to get an intern­ship for my major, but I nev­er knew what exact­ly I want­ed to do. I remem­ber think­ing to myself, I wish my schol­ar­ship foun­da­tion had some sort of intern­ship pro­gram. As the time came for me to start look­ing, oppor­tu­ni­ty knocked on my door through an email. At the moment, I knew I had to apply and try my best to get the posi­tion. I have always been so grate­ful for the Bright Foun­da­tion and felt as though I could give back in some way by being their intern. Also, I lit­er­al­ly thought about this idea a year or so ago, so it’s like a dream come true and I have enjoyed every moment thus far.

What is your role as an intern?

My role as an intern is to com­bine my knowl­edge of social media, tech­nol­o­gy, graph­ic design, and tech­ni­cal writ­ing with cre­ativ­i­ty. I help most­ly with Insta­gram and Twit­ter but also help with oth­er aspects as well. Insta­gram is very visu­al­ly based so I spend a major­i­ty of my time try­ing to make graph­ics that are pleas­ing to the eye as well as match­ing our aes­thet­ic and uphold­ing what the Bright Foun­da­tion stands for.

How do you deal with stress or what helps?

To deal with stress, I have to be alone. I have to seclude myself and just take some qui­et time to myself to relax. I get very over­whelmed with stress, so to help, I stop what­ev­er I am doing and try to remind myself of the big­ger pic­ture of life.

What is your favorite way to waste time?

My favorite way to waste time is to watch Sur­vivor. I love every aspect of the show and think it is very fas­ci­nat­ing to see dif­fer­ent rela­tion­ships and decep­tions form and how oth­er humans treat peo­ple just based on first impres­sions and abil­i­ty. Aside from my favorite show, I love to spend time with my dog, even if that is just lay­ing next to him and pet­ting him for a long time. I enjoy writ­ing and get­ting all of the thoughts out of my head, as well as mak­ing poems and my own quotes to live by.

What is some­thing you have learned out­side of class?

I have learned that you can­not expect any­thing from some­one, even if you do some­thing for them. If you want to do some­thing for some­one, do it out of the kind­ness of your heart or estab­lish bound­aries and expec­ta­tions. Don’t be mad at some­one because they do not auto­mat­i­cal­ly do a favor for you. Every­one has a busy life too, and some­times, peo­ple may just not want to do something.