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Black Collegian Career Center
My
Internship
by
Michelle Oquendo
At five foot, two inches tall, I never harbored any insane ambitions of becoming the first woman to be drafted by the New York
Knicks! But I was still determined to be a part of a professional basketball team. How I found my way onto center court and in to a full-time job as an Entertainment Marketing Assistant for the New York Knicks City Dancers and City Kids, was the result of my Co-op internship while attending Monroe College in New Rochelle, NY.
 Monroe is a small private college, just a half-hour north of New York City, which actively promotes its Co-op program to give students hands-on work experience. It sounded like a great opportunity to me, but frankly, none of the Co-op jobs that happened to be available at the time I was considering the program turned me on.
That's when I got turned onto the Knicks and the NBA. I decided to find or create my own Co-op job, and I began to network. Living in Brooklyn, I had the advantage of having easy access to the NBA Store on Fifth Ave. in Manhattan, very accurately self-described as
"the ultimate event experience…a two-level basketball extravaganza." I became such a familiar attendee at store events that eventually I started enjoying some
"star" treatment myself, being invited into the inner circle of the press corps by John
Andriese, a Knicks commentator and game analyst. But I never attended as a groupie; I went to learn as much as I could about the behind-the-scenes of basketball.
When it came time to apply for a Knicks internship, I knew that my cover letter would make or break me. I was competing against hundreds of other college students from around the country for one of just seven spots. My
"training" paid off. The recruiter of the Knicks' internship program told me that the knowledge and love of the business side of the game that my letter communicated made it sound like I should have already been working for the NBA!
My Co-op academic requirements called for 15-hours a week work, but most weeks, I was on the job five to seven days, often starting at nine in the morning and not sometimes leaving before midnight on account of games. I attended every meeting and every event that I could while also juggling three on-line classes and one traditional on-campus class. I was soon weaving through Madison Square Garden with the same finesse of our smoothest players. (OK, almost!)
I wanted to get as much out of my Co-op experience as possible. And I did. I was the only Knicks intern offered a full-time job. And while six graduating members of
Monroe's 2003-2004 Regional Championship men's basketball team won athletic scholarships to NCAA teams, I was the only Monroe graduate to
"sign" with the Knicks!
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