Santa Monica 2022 - Welcome to our 2022-2023 APASA Interns! đ«¶
Recruitment and Santa Monica, as told from the perspective of our Co-Recruitment Directors, Anjali Suthahar and Katie Osako.
Anjali, can you believe itâs been almost 2 months since the interns were first introduced to APASA?
Haha, yeah Katie, that means this blog post is almost 2 months late. But I know, I canât believe how well theyâve meshed with the rest of APASA!
Well, it took a while to get here. It all started with âOur Visionâ: a top secret document between us, your 2022-2023 recruitment directors, that started with the line âBEWARE of business majors!!â Little did we know, almost half our intern class would be business majors⊠But all jokes aside, in that vision doc, we began thinking about the type of people we wanted to welcome into our space. Most importantly, we wanted to figure out how to best attract them⊠so we scrolled on Pinterest for aesthetic themes and graphicsâ and thatâs when inspiration struck. Our mutual love for Tyler, the Creator led us to stumble across a retro cartoon-like cover of one of his albums, Call Me If You Get Lost. Immediately attached to the aesthetic, we played around with the wording, trying to match it to our recruitment needs. I (Anjali) brilliantly suggested, âCall APASA if you get Lostâ. Katie shouted with excitement and love for the slogan. And from there, we had our 2022-2023 recruitment theme!
For the next couple months, we ideated and filmed our recruitment video with the help of our historian Katie L. (and which Justin deserves an oscar for by the way), prepared our presentations for info sessions, and planned the upcoming intern year. Summer came to an end, and it was finally time to get a glimpse of the new faces of APASAâs interns. From SEIP Welcome to our info sessions, we enjoyed seeing interest in our program. As the applications came in, and we held many long hours of interviews (thank you to our e-board for bringing us food), we finally started to put together our class of 14 remarkable individuals. After spamming their DMs with congratulatory messages, it was time for them to be initiated through the traditional APASA Santa Monica orientation.
Early Saturday morning, Anjali and I woke up to get donuts for the interns, not from Sidecar (like last year), but Spudnuts (sorry weâre broke college students). After finding the only patch of grass left on the Great Lawn, we waited in anticipation of our interns.
APASA interns Carter and Kendal show ⥠for our RDs!
As 10:30 rolled around, they began arriving and talking to each other. They werenât allowed to introduce themselves first, because we had the most awkward set of icebreakers prepared for them. Through name games, ID switches, and a symbolic snack run, they got to know each other a bit better, from bone abnormalities to confessions of being a Swiftie. As they mingled, Katie and I stood back thinking⊠âDo they even like us??â They all seemed to get along so well and didnât seem to need us. As we walked to the Metro station, we received urgent calls from our directors because e-board wasnât on time, so we took a brief stop at Parkside for soft serve.
APASA interns Cody and Sea enjoy the warm September sun in the sand â
Once we arrived at the station, it was chaos. E-board thought a different group of people were the interns and waved, but they made up for it when we finally arrived with the interns, and they greeted them with abundant amounts of cheering and an arm tunnel. The metro ride was filled with photo roulette fun, and making our way to the beach, we were happy to see e-board and interns conversing with each other. The next few hours on the beach consisted of sharing snacks and stories, burying each other in the sand, karaoke-ing with strangers, and a relay race that they hated (but we loved filming). For an early dinner, we split up into smaller groups and enjoyed the rest of the day in a little more intimate environment.
In all seriousness, to our interns: Aryan, Carter, Cody, Ella, James, Kendal, Komal, Lily, Matt, Ryan, Sea, Simran, Tess, and Vandita, we are so grateful to have you all in our APASA family. We are so excited to watch yâall grow and canât wait to see all the amazing things youâll accomplish this next year â€ïž
not pictured: Komal, James, Simran, Tess
With love,
Anjali and Katie