What are LINK 2.0 Internships?
Animas High School's LINK 2.0 Internship is a semester-long or year-long (60 hours per semester) internship program that all students of the Senior class have the opportunity to participate in. Just like LINK 1.0, it gives AHS Seniors the chance to dive deeper into a potential career path.
My LINK 2.0 Internship:
Ashley Libby Diaz is a Brand Architect in Durango, CO. She helps to reinvent a business's brand in order to achieve the impact and growth they desire. Ashley is also a certified StoryBrand guide (see the link below to learn more). She is the ultimate marketing expert and brand creation strategist!
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My LINK 2.0 Projects:
For my first semester project, I conducted Market Research and Analysis for one of Ashley Diaz's clients located in Boston, MA. This ultimately involved researching businesses and medical facilities in the greater Boston area in order to determine this client's top competitors, opportunities for collaboration, and more.
For my second semester, I have had the opportunity to work on many mini-projects where I could incorporate my love of graphic design. I was able to create mock-ups of website pages for Ashley's website, as well as for some of her clients' websites.
I was also able to create an entirely new website for my mother's business, Namaste Health Center, with Ashley's help and guidance. She was able to walk me through and conduct the StoryBrand process, while I was able to make design decisions to accompany the new content.
Reflection:
There were many skills I was able to utilize over the course of this internship, and some that I found I needed to improve on. One of the biggest strengths I was able to develop was the ability to be open-minded. I found myself saying yes to any and all projects presented to me, as I knew I would be able to learn something new and useful from it. I got to do everything from market research to graphic design. I was especially proud of the fact that I conducted a SWOT analysis for a real client, which is what they teach you to do in business school. I was also excited by the fact that I was able to use all of my own design ideas to create a brand new website for Namaste Health Center.
However, I did face some challenges throughout the internship, the largest one being taking Namaste Health Center’s new website live. We had issues with the domain transfer, as the DNS kept propagating to the old website, which was extremely frustrating and stressful. While I had to remain calm and focused, this issue also required me to get outside my comfort zone and ask for help from people I didn’t know, like local web experts and employees of the hosting companies. Additionally, I also found myself, throughout the internship, not giving myself enough time on some of these projects and not being as happy with my work as I could’ve been. For this reason, I’ve identified time and priority management as an area that I could grow in.
Moving forward, I am still planning on being a business major in college, and will likely have some form of marketing included in my degree. This internship has allowed me to gain more experience in the field of website and brand development, and I am definitely considering it as a potential career path, but I’d like to learn even more about it during my time in college.
However, I did face some challenges throughout the internship, the largest one being taking Namaste Health Center’s new website live. We had issues with the domain transfer, as the DNS kept propagating to the old website, which was extremely frustrating and stressful. While I had to remain calm and focused, this issue also required me to get outside my comfort zone and ask for help from people I didn’t know, like local web experts and employees of the hosting companies. Additionally, I also found myself, throughout the internship, not giving myself enough time on some of these projects and not being as happy with my work as I could’ve been. For this reason, I’ve identified time and priority management as an area that I could grow in.
Moving forward, I am still planning on being a business major in college, and will likely have some form of marketing included in my degree. This internship has allowed me to gain more experience in the field of website and brand development, and I am definitely considering it as a potential career path, but I’d like to learn even more about it during my time in college.
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