Beyond Sports Program Creates Opportunities for Student-Athletes

South Carolina student-athletes gained valuable experience for their life after college and sports thanks to the Athletics Department’s Beyond Sports program, which helped a dozen Gamecocks find summer internships related to their respective majors this summer.

“I learned a lot,” said Sofie Kurzawa, a junior distance runner on the track and field team who is studying journalism with a minor in political science and interned at the South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services. “I had the opportunity to work on a lot of different projects with the office of communications where I wrote a lot of social media posts. I worked on some newsletters and had the chance to write press releases. I also performed web content reviews.”

“I helped with a lot of administrative tasks, scheduled events, and helped set client meetings and any paperwork that was needed,” said junior diver Makenzie Blake who is studying psychology with the intention of going to law school. She interned at the law office of Justin Kata, who is a South Carolina swimming alumnus. “I also traveled all around South Carolina with him for court. I had a chance to see what happens in juvenile court, the State court, federal court, and saw a trial in Florence.”

“I worked at a marketing agency for K through 12 schools,” said Caroline Kudela, a senior on the swim team who is majoring in advertising and interned at Rhodes Branding in Columbia. “I worked on a lot of things, including social media content and brand audits. I worked on focus group preparation where I prepared questions for the parents, students, and alumni. I also worked on focus group summaries where I would take those responses so they could look at those schools and see what was good and what wasn’t. I also did a lot of competitive research.”

“I was an audit/reimbursement intern,” said Carlos Lanzagorta-Ruiz, a rising junior middle-distance runner on the track and field team, who is studying finance and real estate and interned at Palmetto GBA, a subsidiary of BlueCross BlueShield. “I looked at all kinds of cost reports and afterwards we’d run it through a system to make sure everything looked good, and if not, contact the providers. The best part was the people. Everyone was really helpful. We were placed with our own mentor, so we could reach out to them anytime we needed help.”

Getting hands-on experience was an opportunity to learn about what they like and even areas of the profession that take them out of their comfort zone.

“I’m interested in getting into wealth management,” Lanzagorta-Ruiz said. “Working in the role that I did was more of a desk job, and I realized I wanted to do a more personal job. I realized that I liked working with numbers and digging in and really paying attention to those things. The experience of working at a bigger corporation and seeing how that runs while also meeting a lot of individuals working in similar fields helped me figure out where I want to go. I learned the importance of having a good manager as well as a good company. I had a really good experience with BlueCross and with Palmetto GBA, not only with a manager who was easy to speak to, but it was also a good work environment.”

“One of my biggest takeaways was to pay attention to the audience you’re writing for,” Kurzawa said. “You have to shift the tone based on who was reading what I was putting out. I think this experience will help me greatly. It was great to get experience working in Medicaid and see how state agency life works and how they work with other state agencies as well as different departments within our agency as well as the governor’s office. I think that will help me for when I enter the political scene.”

“After doing this, I could definitely see myself going into a career in the legal field,” Blake said. “I wanted to get an experience in law to figure out what I would do. I saw how many connections you can make and how important it was to build relationships with all these people you interact.”

“I learned a lot about how marketing agencies work day-to-day, from the brainstorming process to the final deliverables,” Kudela said. “I had a lot of hands-on experience with design, strategy, research, and client communications. One of the biggest takeaways was learning the value of collaboration and feedback. It really helped me improve my skillset, sharpen my instincts, and feel more prepared and excited for a future in advertising and marketing. The things I did with this internship made me feel more confident in what I’m studying.

Beyond Sports is a professional development and summer internship program that provides student-athletes with a meaningful professional development and work experience, while also helping them to be better prepared for professional life after college.

“The Beyond Sports workshops were very helpful, too” Kudela said. “We learned the importance of marketing yourself, the importance of storytelling, and using social media as a powerful tool to showcase your skills and passions. We had a session on professionalism which focused on showing up on time, dressing appropriately, and communicating. I learned that professionalism creates trust and can open many doors for career advancement. One of my favorites was the financial education workshop. We also had the opportunity to visit Bank of America in Charlotte on a business tour and met and heard from so many professionals while seeing their behind-the-scenes operations. It was eye-opening! The chance to network with different professionals was very cool.”

“Beyond Sports helped me a lot over the summer to develop as a professional,” Kurzawa said. “Going go the student-athlete summit at Bank of America was a great experience. One of the main takeaways throughout Beyond Sports was to learn how to market yourself, focus on your own brand, and I learned how to present myself confidently in a professional manner.”