When Thomas Smith was a junior studying information systems (IS) at the BYU Marriott School of Business, he was determined to find a summer internship where he could build upon the lessons he was learning in his classes. But after sending dozens of applications and hearing nothing back, he wondered what more he could do. He decided to focus on creating connections and networking, eventually finding opportunities in unexpected places.
Smith began learning about the importance of networking almost as soon as he started taking business classes. He felt engaged in one of his first classes, Information Systems 201: Introduction to Information Systems, but he was still torn between choosing IS or another business major. Hoping to reach a conclusion, Smith contacted various BYU Marriott alumni through BYU Connect and LinkedIn to learn about the many career fields related to his interests.
Ultimately, he joined the IS program and became eager to find an internship. He continued reaching out to people on LinkedIn—a collection of applications and personal messages—but struggled to find the opportunity he was looking for. Coupled with the regular stream of rejections, Smith’s IS classes were becoming progressively more difficult and time-consuming.
After his first junior core semester in 2022, Smith focused on spending time with his wife’s family during the holiday break, and he joined his father-in-law’s running group one morning. Smith was surprised to learn that the group members seemed very interested in him and his studies. “What do you do?” He remembers them asking. “And what do you know?”
“I got my first internship from that run,” Smith says. One of the people in the group was a chief HR officer for a construction company, and he hired Smith as a data analytics intern. For the entirety of summer 2023, Smith worked and gained experience he could use as a springboard to find future jobs.
The skills Smith had learned in the junior core came in handy during his internship: “The program is awesome at teaching you how to learn on the fly,” he explains. While at Clark Construction, Smith learned about Snowflake, a cloud-based data storage platform. When he remembered that another member of the running group worked at Snowflake, Smith realized he had a new opportunity to connect to the company.
Smith dug into Snowflake when he returned to school, searching for ways he could boost his credibility with the company in the hopes of landing an internship. He prepared for an application by passing Snowflake’s certification process and connecting with his running friend and other mentors who had backgrounds with Snowflake. By March 2024, he received an internship offer.
His internship at Snowflake as a sales engineer allowed him to accept responsibilities outside of his skillset as an IS student. He was trusted with understanding the practical implementation of the software and helping clients understand why their project was likely to succeed. “A sales engineer needs to communicate well but also be attuned to the technical aspects and capabilities of the software,” he describes.
Smith enjoyed his time so much there that he created two new goals: land a full-time job at Snowflake and spread word of the different employment opportunities available to students. He feels that BYU Marriott consists of a unique group of people who learn technical skills they can potentially combine with communicative ability. “Many of us at BYU have been on missions and [have] gone door to door in a lot of different languages,” says Smith, who feels that these experiences uniquely prepare many students for jobs related to sales—even in IS.
Smith looks forward to joining Snowflake as a full-time employee after his graduation in April 2025; he attributes developing new skills and networking with others as the key to his journey. “Build things on your own, learn things outside of class,” he advises, “and then talk to people about it.”
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Written by Nicholas Day
