Expect the Unexpected

My internship at Boxcar has been an incredibly fulfilling and positive experience. If someone had told me in February that I would end up working for a tech startup as my summer internship, I would have been shocked. This summer, I worked for an app to help commuters. Technology and mobility have never been real interests of mine, and when I decided to take this internship I had no idea what to expect going into it. However, I can confidently say that the skills and experiences that I have learned from working at Boxcar are immensely valuable and will be so helpful to me when I begin applying for full time jobs next year. 

Despite the differences between the expectations and realities of my internship this summer, I still feel as though I was able to achieve many of the goals for myself that I had laid out in my Personal Plan Paper, Personal Contribution and Site Description Paper, and Learning Contract. In my Personal Plan Paper, one of the goals that I outlined was to better communicate and network within my organization that I had at my previous work experiences. I wrote about how there were not many opportunities for me to make connections with people higher up in the organization, as I was often working independently on assigned tasks from my supervisor. My experience at Boxcar could not have been more different from that. Almost all of the work completed by the interns was collaborative. We all did our work together in one room sitting at the same conference table, allowing for us to constantly talk and communicate with one another. When we set out to complete our end of summer projects, the full time employees consistently worked to make themselves available to answer our questions and make sure we succeeded. 

Another skill that I discussed in my Personal Plan Paper was problem solving. This was another skill that I was definitely able to improve upon this summer in addition to communication and networking. Since Boxcar is such a young company, the employees are constantly looking for new ideas to get the app out there and grow the company. The company runs into a new challenge or problem almost every day, and it was up to our team to come up with new and creative solutions. For instance, our CEO wanted for us to come up with new marketing strategies, as the campaigns that were already in place were not generating enough downloads for the app. One idea that I had was that commuters listen to podcasts every day as they go to work, so if we want to reach commuters in our area and have them download our app, we should look into sponsorships and advertisements on local podcasts. This was just one instance where I was able to test my problem solving skills this summer. 

In addition to outlining learning outcomes in my Personal Plan Paper, I also noted more tailored and specific goals in my Personal Contribution and Site Description Paper. In my paper, I wrote about how I wanted for my skills that I learned this summer to go beyond simply making Excel spreadsheets and interpreting data. I am happy to say that I learned much more than these simple skills after working at Boxcar for ten weeks. For instance, as I wrote in my Personal Contribution and Site Description Paper, I was looking forward to getting to be more creative and expanding my skills in graphic design. I was able to practice and hone in on this skill numerous times throughout my internship. Throughout the ten weeks of my internship, I designed numerous advertisements, flyers, and maps for my supervisors. My work was then produced and distributed to customers and municipal partners. This really made me feel like my work mattered and that I was a valued asset within the company. Another skill that I wrote about wanting to improve upon in my paper was coding. However, I was not exposed to the technical side of Boxcar, and was not involved in the tech building process at all. While I was initially disappointed that I wouldn’t get to be involved in that way, it made me realize how many facets there are in a successful tech company. Not every employee was responsible for hunching over their computer and writing code day in and day out. 

In my Learning Contract, I wrote that my one big goal for the summer was to create a successful and convincing final presentation. My assignment from my supervisors was to create a presentation for a new idea for Boxcar using the knowledge and experiences that we gained from our internship this summer. We were to present in front of the entire team in addition to a handful of Boxcar investors. In the words of our CEO, it was going to be “like Shark Tank.” This project was definitely the most stressful component of my internship; I not only had to come up with a new idea for the company, but I had to fully research costs, benefits, and opportunities in order to make it an attractive and marketable option to the people at the top of the food chain. However, this project was ultimately incredibly rewarding. It was the perfect opportunity to showcase what I had learned this summer to my supervisors and my peers, and I was also able to connect with all of the members of our team as they were so helpful in answering my questions and making sure my numbers were correct. It was also significant that some of the apps investors were there; it really added weight to the situation and me feel as though my ideas were being taken seriously, and not just that I was an intern giving an end of summer presentation. 

The lessons that I have learned in my Jepson classes were also instrumental in gaining a better understanding of the leadership dynamics at my internship this summer. For instance, I witnessed how effective transformational leadership is on the small scale. Since working at Boxcar is not particularly dire or stressful, the company does not have a need for a more hardlined transactional leader. My CEO consistently made an effort to get to know all of the interns. It really made a difference in the way the entire team interacted, making the office environment more fun and casual while still maintaining a professional atmosphere. At the end of our internships, the CEO took all of the interns out for one on one lunches to talk about our futures and offered to do whatever he could to help us get to where we wanted to be. Knowing that I was working at such a supportive place that wanted for me to succeed for the sake of myself, and not just for the sake of the organization, made a world of difference in my outlook for this summer. While the work at my internship was fulfilling, the transformational nature of my CEO’s relationship with the rest of the team will be what makes this internship an unforgettable experience. 

My CEO’s approach to leadership this summer also proved the effectiveness of LMX Theory. LMX Theory is defined by the idea that leaders will foster more high quality relationships for the sake of better organizational performance. As I stated earlier, fostering these positive working relationships made it easy for us to work with one another. This made Boxcar incredibly communicative and collaborative. Interns rarely found themselves working by themselves or sitting off on their own. This was a pleasant surprise given that I feel as though many internship experiences involve waiting for instructions and not getting to interact much with the higher ups within the organization. As much as I enjoy working in this kind of environment, I definitely also see some shortcomings in the effectiveness of LMX Theory in my organization. LMX Theory ignores the benefits of distributed leadership and formal hierarchy as group size increases. This kind of working environment is not sustainable if Boxcar continues to grow. I predict that the employees at Boxcar will maybe have to replace some of the personal conversations with more business oriented content at the office. However, I don’t doubt that the sense of belonging and comradery at the office will remain. The working environment at Boxcar is unlike where I have ever worked before, and this is definitely in part because my CEO chose to implement elements of LMX Theory to his leadership style, whether he knew he was doing it or not. 

Overall, I can confidently say that my summer internship working at Boxcar was a success. I never thought that I would learn and grow so much in just ten weeks, and I look forward to being able to apply what I have learned at my internship to my leadership classes next semester in addition to my future professional endeavors upon graduation. I never would have thought that this internship would have been this successful in preparing me for the real world, and I can only think of how lucky I was to have been able to experience it.