Internships are part of the steps to an adult life. It reveals to you how life is in the real world. I saw my friends working all the time (mostly at fast food places) and even though they were making a decent amount of money, it was not really going to help them in their future. In my opinion, joining Makeshark was one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life because It made me more responsible, helped me when it comes to socializing with strangers, and it improved my skills for my major in college. To be honest I think internships should be mandatory for every single college.
1. Responsibility: Even though the hours were really flexible, waking up and going to work at 8am–5pm from Monday to Friday really opened my eyes to how the real world was like and the effort people have to put in their daily job in order to survive. Now I feel confident in any job that I will be put in because I know that I will always be prepared for it mentally and physically. Plus, being surrounded by adults all the time helped me become more responsible because it always reminds me that this is not a place for joking around and I should take everything I do very serious. Working at Makeshark made me a lot of money in a short amount of time which helped me become more responsible because I did not have to ask my family for money just to pay for little stuff such as clothes, phone bills, haircuts, etc. So the internship did not only benefit me but it also benefited the people around me.
2. Socialize: Being able to give a speech or just having a conversation with people you have not interacted with before is a very difficult task to accomplish. One of my personalities is being really quiet, but working with Makeshark has helped me a lot when it comes to socializing with other people because the company participates in lots of competitions and festivals which allows me to brush up on my speaking skills. Last year we attended a competition to show people what the company was about and I was asked to talk to people about what the company was about which was pretty difficult for me but I was very confident and I became successful in mastering that skill.
3. Skills: The purpose of an internship is to help you get a sense of what you are going to be doing in your career. The major that I plan to be in is Electrical Engineering, which I know has nothing to do with web design, but working with devices all the time keeps my mind active and it has provided me with certain skills such as working with Wix, HubSpot, and other software. Wix is the platform I use for building websites and it is pretty easy to use because it actually shows you what your website is going to look like in the process of building it. Another skill that I achieved was being able to find customers through "lead generation", which is a process where we use Google Maps to find businesses then send them an email asking if they need a website.
Accepting this internship at Makeshark has really benefited my life because I did not waste my summer by staying at home the entire time, but I was able to make my life meaningful which has prepared me for the future.
- Kwaku Oppong
Makeshark is a web design and SEO marketing company in Columbus, Ohio empowering urban-youth through training and employment. To learn more about our services, or be part of our summer internship program, please contact us at makeshark.com/contact.