honorsatiowa posted: " Allen at his remote workstation during his summer internship. During his online summer internship through the Tippie College of Business, Allen applied his business analytics and marking skills to aid a non-profit organization. In his narrative, All" Note to Self
Allen at his remote workstation during his summer internship.
During his online summer internship through the Tippie College of Business, Allen applied his business analytics and marking skills to aid a non-profit organization. In his narrative, Allen talks about the ups and downs of the internship, the connections he developed with other students and staff, and the experience he gained relating to his future career!
Over the summer, I completed an eight-week internship remotely at home with the Tippie College of Business. Along with other interns, who were also students at Tippie, we partnered with a local nonprofit organization to assist them in analyzing their business and marketing plan. This internship provided me an opportunity to utilize the business analytics skills I learned in class, while collaborating with other Tippie students. While this internship was with a small nonprofit rather than a large corporation, the experience towards my future career was invaluable.
There were many positives and benefits and a few drawbacks with my internship. First, I enjoyed working with other Tippie students on something outside of a class project. Heading into my final year of undergrad and first year of grad school, I will have a different perspective on the dynamic and purpose of class projects. Instead of doing a class project to fulfill the requirement and earn a grade, I need to understand how I can utilize these skills in my future career. After completing this internship, I can see how the projects I completed in my spring semester classes relate to the outside world.
In almost every group project I completed in the four semesters I have been at Tippie, I have taken a leadership role in the project, either completely voluntarily or because no one else would step up. I like to take the leadership role to lead a team to success. However, for this internship, another one of my team members took that role. Knowing I wasn't the team leader allowed me to take a step back in the project, while watching someone else lead, which I rarely do. Instead of doing all the talking during the team and sponsor meetings, I got to listen and see how the project was coming along from a non-leader perspective. In the future, I won't always be the leader of a project/team and this internship allowed me to gain insight into how important every team member is, even though they may not be the leader of the team. Even though I wasn't the team leader, every member of the team got to lead an aspect of the overall project. I led the redesigning of the organization's website.
The group of students Allen worked with this summer.
When analyzing our organization's marketing plan, and based on survey responses from their members, we realized that one of their weaknesses was their external image. In other words, their website was outdated, and their social media platforms were not kept up to date. We determined that to attract new members, they should update these platforms continuously. To help with this process, we changed their website platform, a process that I took the lead in. Our supervisor recommended we change their website from WordPress to Squarespace, based on her experience. I built their new website from a Squarespace template, which received positive feedback from my other team members, our supervisor, and our organization sponsor. Along the way, I gained experience and the technical skills needed to build a website on Squarespace. This was the highlight of my internship.
One of the biggest challenges of the internship was doing the entire internship online. Even though I didn't get to meet my team members in person, we bonded well online by having conversations not related to the internship. Knowing we wouldn't work together in person throughout the internship, our supervisor also created some icebreaker activities so we would get to know each other. While getting to work in person might have been better, our team had no problems completing a shared task completely online.
A goal I set was to network with other students and develop a relationship with my supervisor. Even though my internship was online, I was able to successfully network with my other team members. Since two of my team members have already graduated, I was able to gain insight into the final classes of my major. Also, they offered me updates and tips on searching for a job in the business analytics field. I will be able to consider this in a couple of years when I am searching for a career. We met with our supervisor every week as a group, and I met with her twice during the internship for a one-on-one meeting. These meetings allowed us to discuss my goals and progress. Beyond the internship, she graciously offered to write me a reference in the future, and we talked about a position as a teaching assistant for her class in the future. This internship provided me with an opportunity to connect with a professor outside of the classroom.
Another goal I set was to learn new skills related to business analytics to apply in the internship and in future classes and careers. While I didn't necessarily learn any technical skills, I did get introduced to three new platforms: Tableau, Qualtrics, and Squarespace. The functions these platforms perform are related to business analytics, such as data visualization, surveying, and web design. Since I was the leader for the web design aspect, I gained a wealth of experience in Squarespace. For Qualtrics, I gained some experience while helping my team members create and analyze the survey. Even though our group didn't require the use of Tableau, I watched tutorial videos on YouTube that were recommended by my supervisor to gain some exposure for when I need to use it in a class or future job.
Overall, this internship provided me with an opportunity to work with other Tippie students, connect with my supervisor, and refine my business analytics knowledge, all while helping a non-profit organization.
Author Bio: Allen Li is from West Des Moines, Iowa and is currently a graduate student completing a master's degree in business analytics. He will graduate from the University of Iowa in the spring of 2024 with his BBA in business analytics and information systems. Outside of academics, Allen enjoys working his part-time student job at the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center (CRWC) as an aquatic equipment technician. He also enjoys watching many different sports and Gordon Ramsay shows in his free time.
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