I’m happy to say that my internship ended on a high note! This fall my innovationREADY project sponsors plan to pilot the software I developed in the field. My manager was extremely happy with my overall performance and wants me to come back to State Farm. Lastly, I had a good time saying good-bye to fellow interns during a company sponsored dinner.

Over the course of the summer I learned a lot as a project leader, I was forced to perform administrative tasks that I’ve never had to do before, such as: lead multiple meetings a week, help co-workers find a way to approach their work and deal with the unexpected drama at the workplace. Also, I learned that being a leader isn’t about communicating to team members under my leadership, it’s about managing communication between the employees both above and below my leadership position, while giving a direction to those following my lead.

As I leave State Farm I can walk away knowing the following: State Farm is a great employer and they treated me very well! There are only a couple of reasons I wouldn’t come back to work for State Farm and they’re more personal reasons than anything else. First, I would like to pursue a job in the technology industry, instead of the insurance/financial industry. Technology is my passion and I want to work with a company that shares my passion. Rightfully so, State Farm believes in leveraging technology to make their business more efficient. They’re not in business to develop technology for the world to use. Secondly, if I don’t work for a technological company I wouldn’t mind working with an employer closer to my family. There are a lot of great employers in the United States and if I find a company that is located closer to my family, that I respect as much as State Farm, I’ll probably go to a company closer to home.

Today was awesome! It was the official innovationREADY presentation day. Eight out of the original fifteen innovationREADY teams presented their summer work to an enterprise audience. My team presented in the morning when there were 250-300 employees in the audience! There was a wide variety of employees which ranged from interns to chairmen council members. I’m very proud of my team, not only did we work hard all summer but we did a great job of presenting ourselves and our work to our audience.

As I reflect on the day I’m really surprised at how calm I was, normally I get nervous for presentations. Either the surplus of dry runs my team went through or some newfound confidence helped me overcome stage fright. On top of my confidence I got the audience to laugh at a few impromptu jokes as I demoed the software I developed. 🙂

Directly after our presentation I was swarmed by our project sponsors, project leads and employees that were interested in our project. A lot of people congratulated us and were excited to see our results. Today was very gratifying!