Xinru Arritt interned at Babylon Farms, a Richmond-based company specializing in sustainable indoor hydroponic farming. She’d learned about UR Summer Fellowships during an admitted students tour before her first day on campus, but didn’t discover its full potential until two years later when she wanted to explore the possibility of adding additional areas of study to her degree.

“I thought a marketing, sales, and strategy role would be beneficial in preparing me for future courses towards my degree and learning key industry functions,” she said.

Arritt knew of Babylon Farms because of their Galleri commercial indoor micro-farm located in the business school’s atrium. “I was drawn to and fascinated by the Galleri,” Arritt said. “It is spectacular to look at, while at the same time practical.”

The micro-farm in the Robins School is a sustainable, year-round growing system that supplies sustainable greens to retail dining locations on campus, like Lou’s.

When Arritt learned that Babylon Farms was headquartered in Richmond, she applied for a marketing, sales, and corporate strategy intern role. “As a start-up, there was an expectation that I’d take on projects without micromanagement, so my day-to-day could vary,” Arritt said. “I learned a lot about the sales and marketing functions of identifying prospects, the lead funnel, and creating promotional materials.”

She worked on a variety of projects, from creating short-form video assets and educational prospecting, to documenting processes to create templates, and outlining a video podcast series. “The agency to manage my own time and projects, and the trust in me to choose correctly, was the most rewarding part of my internship,” she said. “It really challenged me to apply quickly and efficiently what I learned in my classes. The value of these kinds of experiences is that students get to see and learn firsthand what working is like.”

As a finance student, Arritt has plans to work in financial advisory after graduation, but said the internship convinced her to double concentrate. “I wasn’t sure if I was interested in entrepreneurship, but I now know that being well-rounded and having strong sales skills will help me as a financial advisor,” she said. She wants to take her finance and entrepreneurial skills and open an advisory firm one day.

“I really hope students know that opportunities with URSF are risk-free,” Arritt said. “You get to learn about other fields you might enjoy, while also being paid for your work. That is so valuable.”

After her Babylon experience, Arritt spent the remainder of her summer as a Financial Advisor Development Track Fellow at JPMorganChase in Phoenix.  She believed that by participating in two diverse internships, she would have a better idea of what area she wanted to focus on.

“I hoped by working two internships I would get that clarity, and I did. If I'm being honest, the internships didn't complement each other that much, but I wasn't expecting them to. I think because they didn't complement one another, I was able to better see the contrast between sales and marketing and finance,” she said.