Shanvanth Arnipalli is a fourth-year student studying Environmental Science. He completed a virtual internship with Tropik Cosmetics – a company based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – through Campus B, an organization specializing in international education.

I was an undergraduate intern for Tropik Cosmetics. My primary responsibilities consisted of creating business cases for the international expansion of Tropik Cosmetics, based on principles: Environmental, Social, Corporate Governance (ESG), Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and regenerative economy.

I looked into cloud (long-term) initiatives and grass-roots efforts that Tropik Cosmetics can take to improve their social media awareness and brand image and become a household name. Using my team’s personal experiences and surveying Generation Z consumers for beauty and wellness products, we were able to come up with cost-effective strategies for this company to implement.

Utilizing my analysis of Tropik’s strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities (SWOT), I came up with two approaches – namely grassroots and regional efforts targeted at improving brand awareness, building a young-adult consumer base and, last but not least, bolstering ethos.

These approaches were then used to research outlets, wherein, this company could implement them. Utilizing the TOWS analysis approaches, my SWOT analysis of Tropik was used to create hybrid models of each factor to make them more productive for implementation.

I was drawn by the diversity in projects made available to undergraduate students. These projects were very inclusive of all majors and years, moreover, it provided a great virtual space for meeting various peers from different personal and professional backgrounds through these diverse projects.

Accessibility to opportunities of this caliber is extremely helpful in bringing down any financial barriers for undergraduate students. I was fortunate to be nominated by The Ohio State University to receive a full scholarship in the Positive Impact Internship. The Office of International Affairs was a key player in enabling my participation in this experience.

This internship was a space for me to explore consulting and management work. I have a strong STEM background, and by participating in this experience, I wanted to see if there are other avenues outside of academia for me to explore for my future career post-undergrad.

Through my team’s journey together, we had to navigate many obstacles, wherein, we had to understand others’ perspectives, communication styles, work capacity and many other factors that made this experience that much more fruitful. This learning manifested itself in the previous assignments by prompting us to think about various topics that are involved and are critical for a well-functioning, multi-disciplinary team.