Piper Goldstein entered the University of Delaware as a fashion merchandising major and said she has loved every class she’s taken. Eve Chapman, a marketing major, declared fashion merchandising as a minor early in her tenure at UD and said that through those courses and a little more exposure, she was able to see the opportunity in fashion and retail. 

“It’s basically applying my business classes knowledge to the fashion industry,” she said.

While their UD education laid the groundwork, both Goldstein and Chapman, now seniors, took the next step in pursuing their careers this summer by working in the New York City fashion industry. They joined eight other UD students for a competitive eight-week internship with Ross Stores and DD’s Discounts, a subsidiary of Ross, in the New York Buying Office, adjacent to Bryant Park

Together with their peers, Goldstein and Chapman stepped into high-impact roles, applied what they’ve learned at UD and discovered just how far their education could take them.

Bert Stewart, manager of college relations at Ross, oversees the company’s summer program that annually hires around 150 students during June and July. This summer, students from 38 colleges were represented, although Stewart regularly utilizes a core group of roughly a dozen schools, which includes UD.

“We look for schools that have either a strong merchandising program or a strong business school,” he said. “Or, in Delaware’s case, both.”

This summer’s partnership between Ross and UD featured six students in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics and four in the College of Arts and Sciences.

“The Ross internship program provides a unique opportunity for students to get hands-on experience while utilizing their classroom learning in real-world applications,” said Brenda Shaffer, senior instructor and director of undergraduate students in UD’s Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies.

Chapman, who worked as a location planning analyst intern in DD’s ladies plus division, focused on looking at planning reports for weekly sales to analyze how certain stores and regions were performing.

Goldstein, an assistant buyer intern in DD’s girls' bottoms and dresses division, would run reports each Monday for sales based on category and class, and then individualized sales. Her team would then project sales for the following week and compare the numbers.

Goldstein was also able to attend market appointments, where she would visit vendors and view their products. Those meetings included closeout or upfront purchases, where Goldstein would work with vendors to create a dress or bottom.

For her final project, Chapman reviewed her product category in DD’s Inland California (Riverside and San Bernardino Counties) region and analyzed Q4 performance from 2024 to find areas of risk and opportunity in Q4 2025.

“Basically, do I agree with where our budgeted dollars are for this region based on how they performed? Or do I see some risk, like we might be sending too much money for a product group?” she explained.

Goldstein’s final project was an opportunity to create her own strategic idea in a category where the company could move in the future. She picked girls’ 7 to 16 dresses and went comparison shopping, going off price retail stores to see what they had to offer in silhouettes, styles and patterns.

“Then we looked at our rack at Ross and DDs, and what our customer walks in and sees. So it was like, this is what we have, this is what our sales are looking like, and this is how I would change our penetration.”

Both Chapman and Goldstein valued the real-world expertise they gained throughout the two months.

“We were seeing the job and getting our hands dirty, learning how to do it,” Chapman said. “So it was nice to feel like I was doing something, learning something. And it really does queue you up where, if you get a return offer, you already know what to expect.”

Goldstein, who worked directly with a manager and mentor during the program, agreed.

“I was doing work that was very hands-on,” she said. “I was basically in charge of shipping the entire time I was there, and I had my own responsibilities that felt like I was part of the team.”

Those sentiments are what Ross strives for, according to Stewart.

“That’s what we hang our hat on; this is not a fetch coffee or making copies internship,” he said. “But it’s a two-way street because we get a good read on their skillset and everything the interns are doing. They’re being evaluated so that at the end of the program, we can talk about their performance and hopefully make a full-time offer.”

Stewart said that his goal is to have 100% of the interns get return offers, “so we really believe in that trial run perspective. What we’ve seen is that people who do get offers and come back, they have the confidence to know what’s expected of them in a full-time role, since they were doing 75% of the job previously as an intern.”

Shaffer noted that in many cases, UD students have received offers for full-time jobs at Ross by October of their senior year, and currently, more than 50 UD alumni are working at the company.

This year’s UD cohort of summer interns hopes to join them.

“I definitely loved my experience there,” Goldstein said. “I came out of [the internship] knowing so much more than I thought I would learn. I would love to go back if they want to have me back.”