HSI Sensing has two great interns this summer. Zack Doughty is in his second summer as an Engineering Intern working to enhance our product knowledge. He recently graduate high school and is headed to Oklahoma State University to study Electrical Engineering. Zack brings great enthusiasm and determination to his internship, digging into the data gathering process in order to discern patterns related to product performance. Deborah Park just completed her freshman year at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. Deborah’s task this summer is to examine sales and marketing data in order to gain insights into our customers, who they are and what they value. Deborah has been such a pleasure to work with, bringing youthful excitement and vibrancy to the office. She is also teaching the staff new things, like how to use hashtags.
Interns provide value to me and our organization in important ways. Seeing as everyone realizes they are here only a short while, they have an uncanny ability to stay focused on a narrow scope of activities. Their job description is simply to do the few projects assigned, so they do not get distracted by administrative items nor are they spread thin with myriad responsibilities. These projects are usually very important, yet time consuming, so when given to regular full time employees, they take months or years to complete as a side project, but get condensed down to a few weeks when it is the intern’s only project.
Besides simply completing tasks, their energy seems to be contagious. As typically happens in a new job, they attack them with vigor. The interns bring new life into an environment where it may have become an old routine for those of us that have been here several years, day in and day out.
Finally, it is rewarding to watch them grow and develop. Being students, they are accustomed to being in a learning environment, but one in which the knowledge and utilization of that knowledge are often separated. This is not the case with the internship. When they learn a new skill, it is expressly because they need to use it immediately. Watching their almost daily transformations from student towards being a professional with new valuable skills inspires me.
So let me close with a BIG THANK YOU to Deborah Park and Zack Doughty for being such valuable interns!