Business Management Major Gains Experience Interning for Save Your Home Program Monday, October 27, 2014
Meet Joseph Buckel
Major: Business management with a concentration in general management
Internship: Save your Home program coordinator, Allegheny County Department of Economic Development
Hometown: York, Pa.
High School: Dallastown Area High School
Expected graduation: May 2015
College activities: United Student Government, WPPJ, The Globe, U-View
Hobbies/interests: News and politics, walking trails, being outdoors in Pittsburgh, painting, studying presidential biographies and playing with my twin nephews
Twitter: @JoeBuckel
How did the Career Development Center help you land this internship?
I went to Career Development Center's open house and Angela Scaramucci referred me to the Point Park Career Network where I applied to several internships. Two days after I interviewed with the Allegheny County Department of Economic Development, they offered me a paid internship position. During that time, Laura Dulaney, career counselor for the School of Business, assisted me with my resume and provided some helpful suggestions.
Why did you choose Point Park?
Word-of-mouth led me here. A friend at my high school recommended Point Park to me. I came out and visited the campus and fell in love. I enrolled at Point Park as a journalism major but after taking a course with Professor Soren Hogsgaard in which we we talked about economics, I was inspired to switch my major to business management. It was a better fit for me.
What have you enjoyed most about Point Park?
I love being a part of the University's close community. Everybody, not just professors but also the cafe workers, maintenance staff, library staff, desk attendants and all of the people who play very important support roles recognized me after just a few weeks of being on campus. They are always so friendly and helpful.
Early on during my freshman year a maintenance worker came to my dorm room to change a light bulb and took an extra few minutes just to see how I was adjusting to college and asked me if I needed help with anything else. He told me that he is a parent who put kids through college so he knew what freshmen in their first semester go through. That small gesture really made an impression on me about the Point Park community.
Tell us about your internship.
My main responsibility is to answer the county's hotline for its Save Your Home program. The hotline is one of the first calls people make when they are served with foreclosure papers. If they are eligible for a program, I enroll them and file papers on behalf of the county with the court system, putting a stay on their mortgage foreclosure. I then set them up with a free housing counselor. Overall, it's been a very eye-opening experience about what people in the housing crisis are going through.
In what ways does your internship relate to your major?
I've learned about how the county works from a business perspective and how government employees are designed to serve the public. These are all things we talk about in my business classes. My internship has been an experience in taking the theory and putting it into practice of how businesses and economics work.
Also, this internship has allowed me to see first-hand the challenges organizations face and how parts of a whole must go together to successfully execute a program that has huge implications and responsibilities.
What are your career goals?
I've always tried to help people in the community. I began volunteering at a hospital when I was 14 years old and completed 600 hours by the time I was 16. I'd like to carry public service into my career and lead a nonprofit organization that focuses on fixing the mental health treatment field.
Is there anything else you'd like to add?
At Point Park, there is always someone able to help you. You just need to know who to ask. Whenever I've had any type of problem, there was always someone here who would either give me the answer or tell me who knows the answer and then follow up with me. That's definitely something that is unique about Point Park.
Photo by Victoria A. Mikula, sophomore photojournalism major