Rejection is a fairly difficult situation and feeling to overcome. Few turn it into motivation to do better, a certain Doral Academy alumni had an interesting story after graduating. Emily Rodriguez after high school  attended Florida State University in Tallahassee for their summer semester. She majored in marketing and double minored in Hospitality Management and Recreation, Tourism and Events. 

     During Rodriguez’s junior year of college, she applied for a summer internship at Royal Caribbean which she described as her dream company. Unfortunately she was denied the position so then decided to join a business fraternity, in what she describes as, “in hopes of gaining networking opportunities and polishing my business etiquette.” 

     Rodriguez, however, did not become discouraged from being rejected from the internship she dearly wanted so she applied the following year and finally got the internship at Royal Caribbean working for the Product Marketing team and recently has been promoted and developed a new department, Product Innovation, which sets the standard for how they develop incredible experiences for the guests on board Royal Caribbean ships and private destinations. 

     Her story stands out from the numerous alumni we have contacted for the fact that she told us her ups and downs. Reading multiple stories of what alumni have been doing since graduating from Doral Academy, her story was different from the rest as it had her real story and not a picture perfect summary. Most would probably not have written about the setbacks but I think it takes courage to be able to talk about the lower parts of someone’s professional career.  Rodriguez turned that rejection into a lesson and came out even better in the end.