STEP Signature Project Reflection

For my STEP Signature Project, I lived in Chicago over the summer and worked two-part time internships. One internship was with Hubbard Broadcasting, which runs three major radio stations in Chicago, and I attended events on behalf of the radio station to set up games, play music, and give out prizes to promote the station. The other internship was with Celtic Chicago, an associations management agency, and in that position I completed a variety of creative design work for social media as well as analytical database management.

The biggest change I experienced while completing my STEP Signature Project was learning that I am most happy when I have work that balances hard skills, like working on the computer or designing projects, and soft skills, like talking on the phone or running a game. Previously, I changed my major from Moving-Image Production to Communication because I believed that I wholly preferred talking to people and using soft skills rather than the more technical hard skills of film prediction. However, I discovered that while working at the computer for eight hours straight can be tiring, it can also be tiring keeping up an enthusiastic attitude for four hours straight at an event. Therefore, I think when starting my career after graduation, I’d like to find a job that combines these two areas of interest.

This transformation was caused by the fact that each of my two internships distinctly focused on either hard or soft skills, so I was really able to experience the best of both worlds. At the Hubbard Broadcasting job, while working in the office I was in charge of calling prize winners to verify their mailing information, which seems fairly mundane, but I really enjoyed the conversation. The main part of my job at Hubbard was driving the company van out to various events in Illinois, where my coworker and I would set up a tent and table, play music, and have games set up that patrons could play to win prizes. I have always loved performing, so being up in front of the crowd and interacting with the people there was right up my alley and a lot of fun.

At Celtic Chicago, I was involved in a lot more independent work. I often designed graphics for social media, being given a concise prompt and allowed to use my creativity to come up with my own plan of action. I also made many website edits, often teaching myself HTML to work on the backend of a website and make it look exactly how my boss wanted. In addition, I often proofread important documents or web pages, and contrary to what I had previously believed, this methodical, analytical work was really interesting, and it was fulfilling to be able to solve different kinds of problems.

These activities affected me by making me feel really content with the task at hand, but also appreciating the opposing values of the other work. For example, sometimes I would get tired of talking to people when working at Hubbard, and I wished that I could have quiet time by myself to work on a design. Other times, when I was working at Celtic Chicago, I would grow bored of being by myself and wished I could be up in front of a crowd and dancing to music. Ultimately, I was able to learn a lot, in contrast to what I previously believed, about the kind of work that makes me feel fulfilled.

This transformation is important to me because I have many different interests, so I have had difficulty narrowing down what career path I want to follow after graduation. With this new knowledge about myself, I know more specifically what job I would most enjoy having. For example, I know I would enjoy working in programming at a museum or cultural center, where I can plan activities in my office then lead those activities with the public. Similarly, I would enjoy working in content creation, where I can plan social media photos and videos while also appearing in posts myself. After my STEP Signature Project, I feel much more confident entering my senior year and the workforce after that.