“There’s just something about working with fellow Bulldogs,” says Maria Porter ’12.

As the Graphic Services Manager at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, a Midwest regional law firm, Porter has the opportunity to engage with students from her alma mater through the firm’s marketing internship program. The program lasts for two semesters—longer than most internships—allowing students time to work on bigger projects and enhance their overall experience. Internship responsibilities vary depending on what’s needed, and on the background of each student.

Since the program began in 2014, Taft has hired approximately two interns each year, and Porter says a good chunk of them have come from Butler. She is impressed with the work of her fellow Bulldogs, and she has seen them be very successful in the program.

“Butler interns have shown a lot of initiative,” says Porter, who serves as the interns’ direct supervisor, “which means they’ve been able to take ownership of firm-wide projects. For example, when Taft leadership decided to start adding paralegal bios to our website, we had a Butler intern write the website bios for any new paralegals who joined the firm during her internship.”

Having had valuable internship experience herself while at Butler, Porter now seeks to give others a similar opportunity to work collaboratively in a real-world environment.

Porter, who graduated with an Art + Design major and minors in Digital Media Production and Spanish, spent her time as a student gaining experience that would prepare her for a career in graphic design. Through connections she made at Butler, she had the chance to complete two internships, one with Indiana Humanities and another with Indianapolis-based fine artist Walter Knabe.

At Indiana Humanities, a non-profit organization located on the north side of Indianapolis, Porter worked alongside another Butler grad while learning many of the design techniques she still uses today.

Her second internship, which she pursued based on a suggestion from her art professor, allowed her to work with artist Walter Knabe. Knabe focuses on screen printing, a process that was unfamiliar to Porter at the time. But she loved the amount of creativity Knabe demonstrated, and she enjoyed seeing his process play out. Porter helped work on the nuts and bolts of this fine art, creating pieces that matched Knabe’s vision.

While she hasn’t used the technical skill of screen printing much since the internship, Porter learned the importance of following through on someone else’s vision to help create a masterpiece—a crucial skill in her current role as a designer who figures out how to visually communicate another person’s ideas.

Porter currently works as a graphic designer on the in-house marketing team at Taft—another position she discovered through Butler. Her supervisor, also a Butler grad, had reached out to the Lacy School of Business (LSB) in search of students who might make a good match for an open design position. While Porter wasn’t a student within LSB, the business faculty remembered the work she’d done designing logos for their entrepreneurship program, and they passed along her résumé.

Now, Porter applies many of the same skills she gained from her internship experiences, managing visual communication for the firm. She is responsible for all aspects of design, such as creating advertisements, sponsorship brochures, event invitations, and video ads. She also manages Taft’s website.

Looking back at her internship experiences, Porter says, “Butler just has so much connection to the greater Indianapolis community. I was able to have two incredibly different internships that both fed my professional career.”