Briar Cliff University - The Catholic Franciscan Learning Place

Christie Finnegan is living proof that internships are key to launching a career. These days, she's running the same department in which she once interned.

Christie is the Director of Marketing and Public Relations for St. Luke’s Health System in Sioux City, which includes a full-service hospital, a clinic network and St. Luke’s College.

She got her foot in the St. Luke’s door during the summer of 1996, prior to her senior year at Briar Cliff. She wrote news releases, brochures and newsletters as an intern, and most importantly she helped coordinate the St. Luke’s Children’s Miracle Network television fundraiser on KTIV Channel 4. When the CMN Coordinator position opened up two years later, guess whose name St. Luke’s remembered?

"For me, my internships allowed me to make networking contacts in the community,” Christie says, “many of who I work with today in my job.”

Not only did she intern at St. Luke’s, Christie also served as the student director of BC Cares at Briar Cliff, which gave her experience “dealing with volunteers and service projects.” Christie completed yet a third internship for Dakota Dunes Development Company at the end of her senior year.

“I found that by completing a few different internships, it allowed me to see different companies and how they work,” she says. “I could narrow down the field and type of businesses I wanted to work for.”

Learn more about Briar Cliff's Department of Mass Media >>>