Commerce Kitchen Final Reflections
I’m running a little late with this blog post – school has been in session for two weeks already, and my internship ended over a month ago – but I wanted to share this last reflection, even if belatedly, on my summer experience with Commerce Kitchen, a web development and marketing company in Denver. I said in my previous blog post that this internship marked many firsts for me. Consequently, it has posed many opportunities for learning.
Some things I learned were specific to my work, like how to create a successful infographic or how to track visitors to a website using Google Analytics. (Here is a link to the infographic I created on biking in Seattle: http://www.seattlemortgageplanners.com/2013/08/biking-in-seattle/)
Other things I learned were generally useful career skills, like business networking and project management. I also learned some things that I wouldn’t directly list on my newly created Linked-in page, but that are just as valuable for my career and life. I lived on my own for the first time, learned to navigate the very important challenges of finances, cooking, and shared cleaning duties with a housemate. I also learned to recognize when I needed to rely on my roommate and when I just needed alone time.
At Commerce Kitchen, I interacted with people not in a purely social or academic setting, but in a work setting. I learned to depend on my more experienced coworkers for guidance, but at the same time to trust that they valued my own observations, ideas and skills. I learned that a challenging job, with the right people, can be a lot of fun.
Overall, I gained a better sense of where my current skills were useful and what new skills it would be important to focus on developing. I got more of an idea of what kind of job I would find rewarding, and what kind of people I want to be working with. I still don’t know exactly “what I want to do with my life,” but this summer I came to realize that there are more options open to me than I had imagined.
Tags: Commerce Kitchen, Seattle, summer internship, biking, coding, infographic