David Duenas ’21 Lubeznik Center Intern– Throughout my first summer internship I have mastered a variety of skills. Those skills include consisting of Excel worksheets, communications, and merchandising which has also given me more exposure to multitasking and prioritizing activities. My experience interning at an art exhibit near home has been a convenient and comforting experience. Towards the beginning of my internship, it was extremely nerve wrecking because I lacked communication skills tremendously. For the two weeks every phone call was a nightmare because I thought I was never prepared for the questions that the person on the other line was going to ask. Eventually I grew more comfortable with the idea of not knowing answers by learning new communications skills such as telling the person “I’m not sure but please wait a moment and I’ll get that answer for you” or “Let me find that out for you”. Seeing how normal and natural not knowing every answer is I became comfortable answering phones and talking to the people that came into the exhibit.
Merchandise was a lot easier than I expected, it simply was taking photographs of items that are needed to be sold and posting them on their website. They knew about my photography skills and they provided me with a camera. They challenged with making the pieces seem more appealing to potential customers. This will help me in my future endeavors because I now have the experience. What I also now have experience in is Microsoft Excel. Many companies today look for new employees who have this particular skill because Excel has become such a mainstream part of a job in every field of work.
I have evolved with prioritizing because throughout my job my superiors would throw multiple tasks at me once. I realized that in order to properly organize and prioritize responsibilities I need to write everything down, even if it isn’t important. This system lets all the tasks be laid out in front of me and I can decide which ones have the most urgency.
At the beginning of this internship, I thought it was going to be like any other summer job, I didn’t hate it but I’d rather not have been there and didn’t think I’d get much out of it. As I explained above, it turns out I was very wrong. This internship has taught me skills that I will carry with me throughout my entire adult life, not only in the workplace but also in day to day life.
