Difficult and Defining: Balancing Athletics, Academics, and an Internship
“Volleyball opened the door, but I did my homework before stepping through it,” says Victoria Vann (B.S.B.A./M.B.A Business Analytics ’26).
Recruited from a small town in Texas for the Illinois Tech women’s volleyball team, Vann wanted to see her potential new home firsthand before committing to it.
“Stepping into Chicago for the first time, I just felt it,” she says. “The city had this energy I had never experienced. It is one of the most diverse and welcoming communities I’ve been a part of. Students come from more than 100 countries and yet it never feels overwhelming. It feels like everyone belongs here.”
During her undergraduate years, Vann connected with Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago for what turned into a three-year internship in strategic sourcing and vendor relationship management. Working part-time while being a full-time student has not always been easy, says Vann, “but it forced me to develop a level of discipline and time management that I don’t think I could have learned any other way. I took on real responsibility, coordinating deployment of vendors, building data visualizations that were used in decision-making, and launching a company-wide team website.”
She adds, “The internship also gave my coursework context. While I was sitting in a business course learning about data modeling or stakeholder communication, I was not just absorbing it theoretically, I was also applying it to the next morning at work.”
Vann was a part of the women’s volleyball team for three years. “Being part of the program taught me things about perseverance, teamwork, and showing up for people, which have shaped how I approach everything else,” she says. “Balancing athletics, academics, and a professional internship simultaneously has been one of the hardest things I have ever done, and one of the most defining.”
Looking ahead to graduation, Vann will be joining the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago as a strategy analyst, supporting the mortgage team in developing and executing strategic initiatives. “Having spent three years with that organization as an intern, I know the culture, I understand the mission, and I am ready to contribute at a higher level from day one,” she says.
“The value of a university is not just in what you learn inside a classroom,” says Vann. “It is in the doors it opens, the people it connects you with, and the version of yourself it helps you become. Illinois Tech delivered on all of that for me.”
