A 10-year competitive figure skater who achieved United States Figure Skating Association Gold Medalist status, Lindsay Toia ’22 has poise on the ice. She has that same kind of presence online. Her website is a platform to share her eportfolio, including projects such as the Bentley #YouCanB campaign, internship experience and a blog.  

“I wanted to connect with other people in a positive way; reflect on things and learn; and talk about the silver lining of unexpected situations,” Toia says of her blog. 

For Toia, an unexpected fallout surrounding the pandemic was the delay of a summer 2020 consumer engagement internship at Horizon Media’s Blue Hour Studios, the brand’s in-house content agency. But Toia stayed in touch with the internship coordinator at Horizon and was placed on a new team — 305 Worldwide — for a summer 2021 internship supporting branding efforts. According to Toia, 305 Worldwide is a multicultural agency within Horizon Media that was launched in partnership with Horizon CEO Bill Koenigsberg and Pitbull (the chief creative officer of the agency).   

“In collaboration with the team, I will develop a social media content calendar for the agency and contribute to the social media content development,” Toia explains of her role, which also includes helping confirm guests for future interviews for a thought-leadership series, researching key categories for 305’s new business efforts and participating in agency creative and production projects. 

Toia will tap expertise she gained in social media roles for Bentley's Student Programs and Engagement team, Dunkin’ Brands, OPI Nail Polish, Sweat Fitness, the Bentley chapter of Alpha Phi International Fraternity and Bentley’s Office of Sustainability.  

“I could see myself spending some time on the agency side and later shifting to the client side and working up to a role like chief marketing officer or creative director,” says Toia, a Marketing major with a Liberal Studies Major in Media Arts and Society. “I’ve always loved coming up with ideas and working to bring them to life from the drawing board through to launch promo, so I can definitely see myself starting something of my own in the future.” 

In fall 2019 Rachel Dobrzynski ’21, a Media and Culture major (with a minor in Spanish for Business), headed to Italy for an internship with Rome Reports, a TV news agency that specializes in covering the Pope, Vatican and Catholic Church. The experience, she says, “was a wild ride with a thousand different stories.”    

In addition to translating stories from Spanish to English, Dobrzynski conducted interviews, wrote stories and maintained the company’s presence on social media. “This experience opened my eyes to new cultures and what it truly means to be adaptable.”    

Her second week on the job, Dobrzynski had to jump in and cover for one of the company’s journalists. “They asked me to interview the president of Malta. I took a small bus and bumpy ride to a fancy hotel and greeted the Maltese ambassador.”  

She was also exposed to diverse cultures. “There were people from all around the world working at this Italian office. My manager, for example, was from Ecuador, and another intern was from Guatemala. They ended up becoming some of the best friends I've made my entire life.”   

Returning to the States, Dobrzynski shifted gears to try her skills in a new kind of role as a research associate for DoubleCheck Research, where she then landed a full-time job as client success associate promoting the company’s new podcast series, Blindspots. She will also communicate with win-loss analysis clients and research directors.   

“I love the idea of storytelling and communicating different cultures through podcasting,”  Dobrzynski says. “So when DoubleCheck offered me a spot helping with podcast promotion, I was excited to take this step. It’s a great example of how a media and culture degree at a business school can work together perfectly.”    

For Jesse Nava ’20, saying ‘yes’ to an internship doing legislative work and community outreach for Representative Jeffrey Sánchez at the Massachusetts Statehouse was informed by early personal experiences. Nava grew up homeless and received state and federal public assistance, which his family used to pay medical bills brought on by his autoimmune disorder.   

 “An initiative with local businesses to provide school supplies and shoes to children in low-income housing facilities was very impactful for me because I recognized the power of government-business partnerships,” says Nava, who also did an internship with the State Department of Rehabilitation in California. “So much good can be formed by coming together.” 

Next in Nava’s career development portfolio was a management consulting internship in the Health Industries Advisory at PricewaterhouseCoopers. This led to a full-time job as a management consultant which he started in October 2020. Nava, a Corporate Finance and Accounting major, works on PwC’s Health Industries Advisory team to help healthcare institutions around the world anticipate and tackle complex business challenges. 

“This role will give me the opportunity to learn about the healthcare industry by working with industry players like healthcare providers, insurers and pharmaceutical companies,” Nava says. 

No matter his job title, Nava says he will continue to advocate for others. “I plan on using my private and public sector experience to ensure that healthcare is accessible and affordable to those who are in a similar socioeconomic status that my family and I were in when we were homeless.” 

Rahul Bhojwani ’22 likes solving problems — especially when his work will benefit others.  Internships helped him figure out how to do that. 

 A Bentley Finance major in the Honors Program, Bhojwani landed an internship in private equity and commercial banking at Search Fund Accelerator and Cambridge Savings Bank in 2019. He also completed an externship with Deloitte Consulting in spring 2020 and a summer 2020 internship for a healthcare investment banking firm based in Nashville — BRG Capital Advisors.   

“These experiences solidified my interest in investment banking and developed fundamental business insight,” Bhojwani says. “The breadth of experiences shaped my thought process and approach to problem-solving.”  

Bhojwani also wanted to find a way to incorporate healthcare into his career. In a role he calls "the perfect combination" of the two industries, he signed an offer with SVB Leerink, a leading healthcare and life sciences bank based in Boston. The internship starts in June 2021. 

“I want my impact to have been that I did my job well — that I was a phenomenal executor,” Bhojwani says of how he wants to make an impact on the world. “Eventually, I want to put the skills and resources I’ll have developed to work on behalf of a charity. To have helped people in need — made their lives better — will be the most important work I do.” 

Erin Desimone ’21 “fell in love” with the service work required in a Bentley IT101 course. Working with the America Clicks! program, she taught computer literacy to students in Waltham elementary schools. Soon after Desimone  began an internship at Waltham Partnership for Youth (WPY).  The Yawkey Fellowship is managed by the Bentley Service-Learning and Civic Engagement Center and made possible by a grant from the Yawkey Foundation. 

An Economics-Finance major, Desimone started by reorganizing WPY’s accounts, running accounting reports, and assisting with social media. The internship was just the beginning of Desimone’s work with the nonprofit. The following semester she created a vape education website for their Trailblazers high school student volunteer group, which focuses on educating, advocating and creating policy change around substance use and mental health.  

“They really enjoyed my ‘yes’ attitude,” Desimone says of her success as an intern. “I was always available to do whatever small tasks or larger ones.”  

During junior year Desimone worked with WPY on the Career Success Institute, which includes resume and cover letter prep for high school students looking for internships through WPY’s initiative “Ready, Set, Job.” 

“Given the successful career development Bentley prides themselves on, I thought this program would be extremely successful,” says Desimone, who leveraged resources from Bentley’s Career Development course (CDI). “I saw it as something beneficial that Bentley students could help with.” 

Desimone recently accepted a full-time job at FactSet as a client solutions associate in New York. One of the biggest draws to the company, she says, is the service work they do in the community.  

“During my internship there over the summer, we did a virtual service project where we helped map buildings on Google maps in developing countries to help COVID relief workers target areas with people living in them,” Desimone recalls. “Service will always be a part of my life. I will only work for companies that embody that ideal, and I plan to be on nonprofit boards in the future.”