WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – With the first day of fall classes quickly approaching, summer internships for Purdue wrestlers Jared Florell and Nate Limmex are winding down.
In the third and final installment of internship reports, Florell and Limmex were asked to reflect on what they enjoyed about their internship; how their skills as a student-athlete impacted their internship, but also how the skills gained from their internship will impact them as a student-athlete moving forward; and the value of their internship to help them reach their career goals.
Read the complete summer internship report series: Report 1 / Report 2 Jared Florell / Freshman / Marketing
At the conclusion of my internship with the John R. Wooden Leadership Institute and Purdue Athletics, I'd say that my favorite part was being able to work with the people within Purdue Athletics that work to make my experiences the best possible and have my best interests, as a student-athlete, in mind.
As far as the internship itself, I learned a great deal of communication and other soft skills as well as experiencing what it's like to work in a professional work environment every day.
Getting to go to the NCAA National Office in Indianapolis was a very unique and exciting experience that I learned a lot from. The visit was an opportunity given to all of the Purdue Athletics interns to tour the headquarters campus and speak with a variety of employees. We met with people from all divisions within the NCAA. It was great to see how the entire beast that is the NCAA operates on a larger scale, outside of each individual campus, yet a bit surprising because it looks very similar to any other large corporation. The employees we met with gave us an overview of their job, the department they worked for and explained to us the ins and outs of how the NCAA runs as a business. At the end of the day we got to see the Hall of Champions. Overall, it was a very informative trip and a lot of fun.
Being a student-athlete prepared me to juggle and balance going to my internship every day, along with our practice and weight training schedule, and the summer class I took. I was able to get a lot of good work done in all three areas and still enjoy free time in the summer.
From my internship, I had to utilize a wide variety of resources to get the job done. That is something I have begun to bring into my day-to-day life. I think this will help me a lot during the season with my wrestling and to be an even better student.
Overall, I am very pleased with my internship experience and know that it will help me grow in my own professionalism. I have high goals for myself in terms of my professional career and this is an important stepping stone for me. It helped me to explore the career path of athletic administration, which is something I have always been interested in, and allowed me to see how the people in those positions operate on a day-to-day basis. I am grateful for my experience with the John Wooden Leadership Institute and all of Purdue Athletics for having the opportunity to work with them and gain a lot of valuable experience and great memories this summer. -- Jared Florell
Nate Limmex / Redshirt Sophomore / Chemical Engineering
As I wrap up the last few weeks of my internship at Mead Johnson Nutrition (Evansville, Ind.), I've mainly been working on my summer project and presentation as well as continuing to prepare samples and run tests. My project has been a fun experience to set up my own experiment and analyze data in a practical setting–even though I have found that using a larger sample size will not be more efficient than what we are using now. I'll have the chance to present my work to all the people in our quality lab next week.
The coolest part of the job for me was seeing how my role played a part in the big picture for the whole company. When tests would come back with results out of specification, a retest would have to be performed, followed by a resample. If these results were still out, an out of specification report was sent to quality assurance to alert them of the issue. It's nice to think I've help stop products from being produced with vitamin levels outside of our label claims.
Being my first experience in the workforce, I've gotten first-hand experience at some of the lessons that aren't necessarily taught in the classroom. I've learned the importance of making connections and helping others out whenever possible. There's much to learn, especially when you are new to a company, and others are generally happy to help you if you've reached out to help them in the past.
Also, it's clear that hard work pays off. I have seen someone get a promotion as well as talked to people who have done very well for themselves at the company. It's clear they all don't mind doing a little extra and strive to be the best employee they can be for Mead Johnson.
Looking back on my experience this summer I can say I have a better appreciation for the lessons I've acquired on the mat as well. I now understand how true the quote, "Once you have wrestled, everything else in life is easy" is! My work this summer may have not been physically demanding, but there were times when everything seemed to be going wrong and my work kept piling up. Wrestling has taught me the only option in these situations is to keep pushing through and working hard; eventually things will turn around. Of course, none of my days were even as close to as hard as one of Coach Ersland's barn burner practices, so I knew I could make it through anything.
Wrestling has also taught me that being consistent in my training and being open to critique will produce results in the long run. When I first started this summer, some things were new to me and difficult to pick up. As I continued to tackle these challenges and asked questions, I slowly got better and better just as in learning new skills in wrestling.
All in all, it was a rewarding summer for me to be able to prepare for my future while training and staying close to the sport of wrestling. It's exciting to see some of my studying pay off and apply some of the things I've been learning to real life situations. I look forward to working hard my next two years to further prepare for all of the opportunities my time at Purdue will provide. -- Nate Limmex
In the third and final installment of internship reports, Florell and Limmex were asked to reflect on what they enjoyed about their internship; how their skills as a student-athlete impacted their internship, but also how the skills gained from their internship will impact them as a student-athlete moving forward; and the value of their internship to help them reach their career goals.
Read the complete summer internship report series: Report 1 / Report 2 Jared Florell / Freshman / Marketing
At the conclusion of my internship with the John R. Wooden Leadership Institute and Purdue Athletics, I'd say that my favorite part was being able to work with the people within Purdue Athletics that work to make my experiences the best possible and have my best interests, as a student-athlete, in mind.
As far as the internship itself, I learned a great deal of communication and other soft skills as well as experiencing what it's like to work in a professional work environment every day.
Getting to go to the NCAA National Office in Indianapolis was a very unique and exciting experience that I learned a lot from. The visit was an opportunity given to all of the Purdue Athletics interns to tour the headquarters campus and speak with a variety of employees. We met with people from all divisions within the NCAA. It was great to see how the entire beast that is the NCAA operates on a larger scale, outside of each individual campus, yet a bit surprising because it looks very similar to any other large corporation. The employees we met with gave us an overview of their job, the department they worked for and explained to us the ins and outs of how the NCAA runs as a business. At the end of the day we got to see the Hall of Champions. Overall, it was a very informative trip and a lot of fun.
Being a student-athlete prepared me to juggle and balance going to my internship every day, along with our practice and weight training schedule, and the summer class I took. I was able to get a lot of good work done in all three areas and still enjoy free time in the summer.
From my internship, I had to utilize a wide variety of resources to get the job done. That is something I have begun to bring into my day-to-day life. I think this will help me a lot during the season with my wrestling and to be an even better student.
Overall, I am very pleased with my internship experience and know that it will help me grow in my own professionalism. I have high goals for myself in terms of my professional career and this is an important stepping stone for me. It helped me to explore the career path of athletic administration, which is something I have always been interested in, and allowed me to see how the people in those positions operate on a day-to-day basis. I am grateful for my experience with the John Wooden Leadership Institute and all of Purdue Athletics for having the opportunity to work with them and gain a lot of valuable experience and great memories this summer. -- Jared Florell
Nate Limmex / Redshirt Sophomore / Chemical Engineering
As I wrap up the last few weeks of my internship at Mead Johnson Nutrition (Evansville, Ind.), I've mainly been working on my summer project and presentation as well as continuing to prepare samples and run tests. My project has been a fun experience to set up my own experiment and analyze data in a practical setting–even though I have found that using a larger sample size will not be more efficient than what we are using now. I'll have the chance to present my work to all the people in our quality lab next week.
The coolest part of the job for me was seeing how my role played a part in the big picture for the whole company. When tests would come back with results out of specification, a retest would have to be performed, followed by a resample. If these results were still out, an out of specification report was sent to quality assurance to alert them of the issue. It's nice to think I've help stop products from being produced with vitamin levels outside of our label claims.
Being my first experience in the workforce, I've gotten first-hand experience at some of the lessons that aren't necessarily taught in the classroom. I've learned the importance of making connections and helping others out whenever possible. There's much to learn, especially when you are new to a company, and others are generally happy to help you if you've reached out to help them in the past.
Also, it's clear that hard work pays off. I have seen someone get a promotion as well as talked to people who have done very well for themselves at the company. It's clear they all don't mind doing a little extra and strive to be the best employee they can be for Mead Johnson.
Looking back on my experience this summer I can say I have a better appreciation for the lessons I've acquired on the mat as well. I now understand how true the quote, "Once you have wrestled, everything else in life is easy" is! My work this summer may have not been physically demanding, but there were times when everything seemed to be going wrong and my work kept piling up. Wrestling has taught me the only option in these situations is to keep pushing through and working hard; eventually things will turn around. Of course, none of my days were even as close to as hard as one of Coach Ersland's barn burner practices, so I knew I could make it through anything.
Wrestling has also taught me that being consistent in my training and being open to critique will produce results in the long run. When I first started this summer, some things were new to me and difficult to pick up. As I continued to tackle these challenges and asked questions, I slowly got better and better just as in learning new skills in wrestling.
All in all, it was a rewarding summer for me to be able to prepare for my future while training and staying close to the sport of wrestling. It's exciting to see some of my studying pay off and apply some of the things I've been learning to real life situations. I look forward to working hard my next two years to further prepare for all of the opportunities my time at Purdue will provide. -- Nate Limmex