Cadillac internship gives marketing experiences

by Brian Ortega
Staff Writer

This was no average case study, nor was it a mere supply and demand problem that 17 University of La Verne business major students were given.

This semester, these business students got a real hands-on lesson in what it takes to make it in the business world.

Thanks to the generous partnership and donation of General Motors and Crestview Cadillac, students were given the opportunity to partake in a four-unit General Motors Marketing internship class with the goal of creating and producing a promotion for the Crestview Cadillac car dealership.

Every aspect of the promotion was meticulously planned and coordinated by the students in the class.

Crestview Cadillac gave the students a $2,500 budget to work with.

They were also assigned to work in one of the following areas: research, public relations, advertising, promotions or budget.

Each "department" had its own chairperson, who oversaw a particular aspect of the promotion.

Senior Alex La was named chairman of research and was the first to present his findings of the research that was done to make the project an efficient and productive promotion.

"It was the most stressful project I've worked on, yet it was by far the most rewarding," La said.

Each department had all semester to work on the promotion and present the results to President of Crestview Cadillac Scott Allen. The Crestview Cadillac dealership has been sponsoring ULV students for the past seven years.

"It's a real learning experience for the students and my staff as well, as they explain what they do and both learn from each other in the process," Allen said.

As the students finished the presentation, Allen told the group how he had received nothing but the best feedback about the students, and what a fabulous job they had done.

"I'm very happy about the way it all worked out and appreciate the hard work that was put into it. It has yet to fail working with this school," Allen said to the students.

Many of the students were very enthusiastic about the opportunity to work on the project.