During her interview with a global marketing company that fields as many as 100 internship applications for three positions each semester, Lainie Morris \u201921 delivered a crucial answer.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy first question to every single person is, \u2018Tell me what you know about empathy,\u2019\u201d says Russell Watts<\/a>, vice president of Strategic Marking International<\/a>, adding that he isn\u2019t looking for a candidate to simply define the word. \u201cIt\u2019s the people who say, \u2018I love that you asked that question!\u2019\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Morris was one of those people, who then told Watts: \u201c\u2018Here\u2019s what empathy means to me,\u2019\u201d before giving him her personal explanation.<\/p>\n Turns out, the global supply chain \u2014 of all things \u2014 needed that quality, that depth of responsiveness, because many of SMI\u2019s clients abruptly found themselves forced to use a sales channel they hadn\u2019t needed: e-commerce.<\/p>\n \u201cThen, you know what?\u201d says Watts. \u201cWe\u2019re in the middle of a pandemic, and all of our clients are actually doing what they’ve never done before. An example: There’s a chemical manufacturer, and now all of a sudden everybody needs cleaning chemicals.\u201d<\/p>\n Enter Morris, who spent three months last summer working remotely from her home in Orlando, Florida, for Watts\u2019 Charleston, South Carolina, firm.<\/p>\n Initially, she helped 20-some SMI clients build their social media presence. Then she launched into creating online sales outlets. Through most of June and July, she methodically created Excel spreadsheets of manufacturers\u2019 products. Next, she uploaded those to sell through Amazon and Shopify.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything that she touched, she finished the job and did it great,\u201d Watts says. \u201cThe two things that really stand out with her are just her positive attitude that makes everyone around her better and her work ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n Interestingly, among the things Morris says she learned during her internship: She doesn\u2019t want to pursue a business or sales career.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a great experience with a great company, but now I know that’s not what I want to do, and I think a lot of times students don’t get opportunities to discover that,\u201d says the James B. Duke Scholar.<\/p>\n Even before that, during a 2019 semester abroad in Spain, Morris also realized she didn\u2019t want to become a neuroscientist, either. \u201cAnd that prompted a kind of mid-college crisis,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n With her majors in Spanish and pre-health and minors in medicine, health and culture and Latin American studies, Morris still plans to work in health care, using her language skills to serve the Latinx population. She\u2019s also applying for fellowships and, ultimately, on to graduate school and a doctorate to teach.<\/p>\n \u201cI don’t know what that’s going to look like,\u201d she says, \u201cbut I know that’s definitely where I want to go.\u201d<\/p>\n Watts likewise doesn\u2019t know what awaits his onetime prot\u00e9g\u00e9, but he will tell you this:<\/p>\n \u201cI’m genuinely excited to find out. I cannot wait for five or 10 years down the line, reading her name in the news, reading her name in The New York Times and just not being surprised about something she has done for the good of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During her interview with a global marketing company that fields as many as 100 internship applications for three positions each semester, Lainie Morris \u201921 delivered a crucial answer. \u201cMy first […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,26,58,16,59,30,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-department-page","category-administrative","category-internships","category-modern-languages-and-literature","category-pre-health","category-top-stories","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}