Morgan Weaver began using the Career Center accidentally. The current senior communications major as applying for internships in the spring of her junior year and needed a quiet space to conduct the interviews. Weaver reserved a room in the Career Center, having never used the Center’s resources before. While setting up her laptop and mentally preparing herself for the companies’ questions, Weaver met career consultant Erin Wheeler, who stopped by the room to make sure set up was going well. The two started talking, Wheeler told Weaver about some of the Center’s services, and Weaver quickly made an appointment to review her resumé as she continued her search for summer internships.
The day she met Wheeler, Weaver was interviewing for two positions: one with Pitt Athletics and one with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
“I was so nervous about the interviews because I really wanted both of them,” Weaver notes. “Talking to Erin helped me put everything in perspective. She told me that getting the interview in the first place means that the company thinks you’re capable of working the job, so the interview is just to see if your personality is a good fit with the team. After hearing that, I was able to stop thinking about what would be the right thing to say, and just focused on being myself. I was way calmer and more confident.”
Because of this new outlook, Weaver wound up being offered both positions, and was lucky enough to be able to accept both.
“I accepted Pitt Athletics first, and they said they’d be flexible if I got another position as well,” Weaver explains. “I’m really grateful that I get to do both and have both of those experiences.”
Now, as Weaver currently works these two roles, she splits her time by spending weekdays with the Pirates and weekends with Pitt Athletics. With the Pirates, Weaver interns in the community relations department, working with the Pirates’ charities and the Miracle League, and helping to organize auctions to benefit local Pittsburgh organizations. For Pitt Athletics, she organizes summer camp programs for both young children interested in sports and high school students that Pitt is trying to recruit for their teams. She helps register all the participants, collects the recruits’ information, and makes sure everyone feels welcomed on campus.
As a woman in the sports industry, Weaver understandably had some concerns about equity in the field, but was pleasantly surprised by her interactions with her co-workers.
“I was kind of worried because the sports industry is a male-dominated field, but now that I’ve had these experiences, everyone has been so supportive,” Weaver says. “A lot of my colleagues are women, and we don’t feel like we need to compete with each other. When one of us succeeds, we all succeed. There’s such a positive culture at these organizations.”
Weaver suggests that other students looking for help with resumé reviews, internship searches, or anything else career-related turn to the Career Center.
“Pitt is a big school and I was worried that if I went to the Career Center the advice would be very generalized instead of personalized to my situation and interests,” Weaver recalls. “But Erin made my experience very personal and I didn’t feel like a dime a dozen. She still emails me to check-in all the time, which is so nice.”
Weaver says her ultimate career goal is simply to do work that has an impact.
“If you can look back on the past couple years of work that you’ve done and feel like you’ve done something meaningful and purposeful, that measures success more than any salary would.”
With that in mind, Weaver hopes to continue working somewhere in the sports industry, specifically in Pittsburgh.
“There are only so many teams with so many available positions, so the openings are sometimes limited, but I would really love to work for a Pittsburgh sports team, or even an organization like Pitt Athletics, in a department that works with the community or does some type of charity work,” Weaver states. “I love Pittsburgh; it’s like my second home, and I want to give back to it.”
