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Ryan Roe heads to California

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I've always been a big believer in students doing internships as a way to learn new skills and grow as a person and understand what the 'real world' is like. So when Ryan, 20, asked if he could interview for an internship out in California, we said "yes", and it's been a great experience for him. It also helped that our son, Cory, lives in North Hollywood, just 5 minutes from the Warner Brothers Studio where Ryan has his unpaid internship, and can ride his bike back and forth to work each day. Here's what Ryan had to say about his experiences so far:

"The internship I'm currently doing for the spring semester of working for CONAN O'BRIEN has been one of the most exciting experiences of my life. I have also never worked harder on a daily basis than I do right now. This job has challenged me to become a better student, a better communicator and a better team player. It’s truly an honor working for one of the world's greatest talk shows, hosted by the veteran Late Night host of my generation.

Although working behind the scenes in Hollywood is not always as exciting as being on the stage, my favorite part of my job is seeing how my work directly effects the quality of the show. As a team of interns in the research department of CONAN, our job is to conduct research on all of the upcoming celebrity guests, which eventually is given to the producers allowing them to write an interview to be used on the show. To me, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing that your work is benefitting the company in a practical way, but it also gives us a responsibility to consistently produce quality research which takes a lot of hard work, patience, and attention to detail.

I’m fortunate enough to currently have an internship with more responsibility, but in the past few years, I’ve certainly had my fair share of odd jobs as well. In previous jobs, I’ve been the guy who gets coffee, restocks the printer, and makes cold calls for 9 hours a day. I remember clearly my first week of my first professional job, being far away from my family, and no longer being a privileged student but rather being treated as an adult with zero sympathy given because of my age or lack of experience. I wanted to still be treated like a kid, I wanted the sympathy of others, but instead, my only option for gaining their respect was hard work.

I truly believe that when you trust that God has His best in mind for you, His timing in our lives is perfect. I am incredibly thankful for the humbling experience that those previous jobs gave me. It taught me the value of hard work, respecting others, and most importantly, the willingness to learn from others. Isn’t that the point of an internship anyway?

The point of taking an internship is not to show everyone how great you are and walk out with another bullet point on your resume, as some might think. The point of an internship is to learn just how big the world is, to learn both character traits and working skills, and learn how to work with others in a professional setting. No matter what job you get later on, at first you're going to struggle with it, and it takes time and the help of others to become better. The moment we can learn to humble ourselves and realize that we need the guidance of those more experienced than us, is the moment we can start to succeed.

Although the show is called CONAN, around the studio we like to refer to ourselves as Team Coco. The nickname “Coco" was given to Conan O'Brien by Tom Hanks when he first started out on the Tonight Show, and “Team” came about to reference his loyal fans after leaving the Tonight Show in 2010. It is fascinating for me to find that even though all you see on screen is a stage and a host, it is only through the team work of the CONAN staff that anything successful gets done. Many of these staff have been with Conan O'Brien for years, traveling across the country along with the show and loyally serving this company for a very long time. I’m so proud to work with this team of wonderful people that have an abundance of skills and knowledge that I intend to learn from. The humility and the relationships that I have with them is by far the most valuable things that I will take with me when my time here comes to a close.