Students
2009 Summer Internship with General Mills
by Michelle Taite
Marshmallows, Meetings and Mucho Fun
When our internships started I remember thinking ’12 weeks… that’s quite some time’ but everybody smiled and told me it would go by in a flash and so it did.
I decided to intern with General Mills in brand management and was thrilled when I found out I was working on the Kids Cereal Portfolio. With Lucky, the Trix Rabbit, Cuckoo Bird, Chip the wolf and Dora the Explorer who could imagine a more colorful role. My projects for the summer ranged from managing the day to day business and profit and losses for the $85+ Million brand Golden Grahams including packaging redesign, monthly business reviews, private label analyses to learning about the Hispanic consumer and formulating a long term Hispanic Kids Cereal Strategy as well as educating the business unit on this consumer segment. I was given a LOT of responsibility, lots of real and live projects that would come to life once I finished my internship. Quite a lot to do in 12 weeks but tremendously interesting.
My days were sweet mostly because about a week into the role I was fully addicted to Lucky Charms a cereal I was never allowed to touch as a child. Little did I think that compensating for my early years (with cereal all day everyday anytime anywhere) would compensate my waste line too. If one thing- there is never a shortage of food at General Mills from yogurt to cereal to cakes, fruit roll-ups, soups to pizzas there is always something to eat somewhere and the Cereal Bar (yes a bar of endless free cereal devoted to the division) was where I got my fix.
General Mills is based in an enormous campus. It literally took me 10 minutes to walk from my parking space to my desk every morning – I referred to it as my morning cardio. The stunning modern campus houses a gym, spa & salon, bank, concierge (which will shop for you anywhere and do anything you pretty much ask for – for a very small fee), dry cleaning services, a company store, a Caribou (= Minnesota Starbucks I realized very quickly), a state of the art conference center, the famous Betty Crocker Kitchens, daycare for kids, a photo studio, print services and many many many other perks. It’s really outstanding – you can get anything done from within that building between the hours of 7 AM and 6PM.
As for the people I LOVED THEM- the culture was the greatest part of the summer. General Mills has an intense meeting culture, people meet for 30 minutes back to back for many hours of the day. At first I wondered how they get their work done but then realized that due to the absolutely fabulous team culture many decisions and much of the work takes place in team meetings which is so much fun. It means that you get to sit down with your cross functional pears from sales, finance, R&D, the design and advertising agencies, operations and more and hear about everything from every angle that has to do with your brand. It was fascinating.
Outside of work the intern group was super close- a small family for the summer that did everything from American Idol, to dinners, boat rides, shopping and drinking together during the week and weekends. We were all housed in one building and got to know Minneapolis (which is stunning in case you’ve never been) together. I got paired up with an incredibly smart, witty, fun and patient roommate and formed some great friendships this summer within this group. The Mills also sponsored endless events for us and made sure we had everything we needed to enjoy the experience.
As I crossed the finish line I can only say that I would not have imagined a better experience this summer. But now it’s back to books, naps and partying for a while.
