“Take risks and tell stories.”

I’ve sort of adopted this as my new life motto now that I’ve been a “real person” for a whopping four weeks. My name is Sam Tuttle, and I’m the newest intern here at Fast Horse. I graduated from the University of Minnesota in May with a degree in strategic communications. This past month has been a whirlwind of new, exciting life changes, and I’m so grateful that Fast Horse is one of them.

A bit about me: I started out in the U of M’s School of Journalism and Mass Communications with a dream to work in sport broadcasting. Quickly realizing that being on camera was not my thing, I made the transition to the public relations major while still pursuing my sport management minor. Fingers crossed that the sport industry doesn’t run out of PR crises and brand-management needs (I think I’ll be safe).

As an undergraduate, I was a member of Alpha Chi Omega sorority and held various internship positions ranging a number of industries. From blog posts about local Girl Scouts to press releases on new scientific findings at the American Academy of Neurology, I learned how to write and market for a variety of topics. One of the most fun internships I had was running promotions for Gopher sporting events; Williams Arena wasn’t a bad office to have.

The agency world has always been appealing to me because of the opportunity to work on a variety of accounts and projects. I first heard about Fast Horse as a college sophomore doing my hourly scroll through Facebook.  Video cover letters seemed to take over my newsfeed, and I admired applicants who had the guts to truly put themselves out there and campaign for one of the coveted internships. I remember thinking that Fast Horse seemed like such a cool, innovative place to work, but my camera-shyness caused me to mentally cross it off the list as a feasible opportunity.

Well, looks like I was struck with a bit of luck, since this was the first year that Fast Horse didn’t ask for video cover letters. I saw the application pop up on the Peepshow and immediately sent in my résumé with high hopes. After a couple rounds of interviews and a creative writing challenge, Bob gave me a call to let me know that I would be joining the team this summer. Excited? Extremely. Relieved? Yes. Nervous? Admittedly, a little.

With less than a week under my belt, I already feel like I’m learning so much. Everyone has been so welcoming, and within my first hour I was on a conference call with a client – talk about real-world experience. I’m so excited about this opportunity and am looking forward to diving into projects.

These next few months as a post-grad will bring new lessons, challenges, adventures, colleagues, friends, hopefully a cool new apartment in the city and a myriad of stories. Here’s to a summer of taking risks and living to tell the tale!