Kelly Shannon never liked NASCAR. She lived 15 minutes from Pocono Raceway and could not tell you what it looked like \u2014 or that the cars would be so loud. <\/p>\n
Now a senior majoring in business management<\/a> and minoring in communication studies<\/a> at East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania, Shannon landed an internship with Pocono Raceway this summer and wound up spending more time there than anywhere else.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s nothing like I thought it would be,\u201d she said. \u201cYou can almost say I\u2019m a fan of the sport now.\u201d<\/p>\n Shannon plays a key role in Pocono Raceway\u2019s marketing and advertising efforts. She is responsible for managing the company\u2019s social media sites, which reach over 200,000 followers. Keeping the company innovative, she launched a Snapchat account for Pocono Raceway this summer. <\/p>\n \u201cPeople love Snapchat,” she said. \u201cOur Snapchat stories were getting around 200+ views each, just a few short weeks after creating the account.\u201d<\/p>\n Shannon\u2019s responsibilities also include coordinating autograph sessions and attending many events. Through her various roles, she learned, first hand, about the passion people have for a sport she never contemplated before her Pocono Raceway experience.<\/p>\n \u201cThe energy at a race is unlike anything I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople really love it.\u201d<\/p>\n This internship is an experience that will help her after her graduation from ESU.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to get into the creative side of advertising \u2014 who knows, maybe after ESU I\u2019ll wind up back at Pocono Raceway,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Shannon\u2019s marketing experience did not start at Pocono Raceway. At ESU she is a part of the American Marketing Association Club. The club just started on campus in spring 2015. Now the students are looking to build it up. Being a part of the birth of a club, Shannon learned leadership skills and persistence. <\/p>\n \u201cESU really helped me with my internship,\u201d she said. \u201cI would not be interning with the Pocono Raceway if it wasn\u2019t for Professor McKenzie.\u201d<\/p>\n Robert McKenzie, Ph.D., professor of communication studies and internship coordinator, was Shannon\u2019s internship supervisor this summer.<\/p>\n \u201cKelly cultivated such advanced social media skills that she became a desired employee to her supervisor at Pocono Raceway,\u201d he said. \u201cShe has really showcased her ESU minor in communication studies brightly to the organization.\u201d<\/p>\n For Shannon, landing this internship also allowed her to reach her goal of graduating from ESU one semester early.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve always been ambitious and I just want to get stuff done,\u201d she said. \u201cI would not have been able to graduate early without this internship; it\u2019s the best thing that could have happened for me\u2014 especially financially.\u201d <\/p>\n In her short stint with Pocono Raceway, Shannon built relationships with the staff as well as the drivers. In her first few weeks there, she went to Dover International Speedway and to Kalahari where she spent the day with Trevor Bayne, a current NASCAR driver. She also participated in a Q&A with Erik Jones, a NASCAR truck driver.<\/p>\n Pocono Raceway will keep Shannon on in a limited capacity while she attends her final semester at ESU.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are certain Kelly will do big things in her career,\u201d Kevin Heaney, director of media relations at Pocono Raceway, said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shannon Races to Success with NASCAR Internship<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12797,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[8,11,20,22,58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-management","category-communication-studies","category-esu-success-stories","category-facebook","category-slider"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12794"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12794"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12798,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12794\/revisions\/12798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quantum.esu.edu\/insider\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}