LINK internships have been an important part of Animas High School for many years. Junior students are given three weeks off of scheduled classes to complete their internship. They are required to work 90 hours, learning new skills correlating to their potential career interests. In the end, each intern has to create and complete a final project related to their internship. This experience usually changes the students lives in one way or another, defining or inspiring what their future will may look like.
Arete: a Sien + Co Project
LINK Project and Evidence
LINK Reflection
Discuss skills and abilities coming into LINK that were most useful
I have always been interested in fashion, design, and styling. So I have had many experiences in the industry that helped me prepare for this internship. I have taken 2 fashion styling and design classes that have given me some of the knowledge I needed to successful during this internship. I also feel the experiences that Animas High School has given me have prepared me well for any career. I have honed in my speaking skills, my adaptive abilities and creative mindset. All of this skills greatly helped me during my internship.
Discuss the most important skills developed during LINK.
During my link internship the skill that I developed the most was adaptability and being able to work efficiently in stressful situations. The final project for my link internship was a photoshoot. So for the last week I went to Salt Lake City to prep and shoot the garments. This was a super amazing experience but it was also very busy and at some points stressful. For example we needed to sew tags on the garments, 150 in total. And we had to organize to get the tags printed and sewed on the garments only a few days before the photoshoot. But it was also a very helpful experience for me because I was able to learn what it would be like working in the industry.
Share how you grew through shortcomings or challenges encountered during LINK
One challenge we encountered while doing our photoshoot was not having enough time to get all of the photos professionally taken in the few hours that we had. So instead we were creative and took photos of the model with our iPhone's. We ended up getting tons of super high quality photos that will be useful for social media content. We needed to adapt and work around the problems we had and ended up creating even more amazing content.
Argue for your importance within the organization and make a case for the mentor to accept high school interns in the future.
My internship was very creative and involved coming up with unique ideas. So one of the most important thing that I brought to this internship was my ideas. Another thing that helped the organization that I did was be a fit model for the clothing. This meant I tried on and styled all of the pieces that we were planning on shooting. This was a super big part of the internship and is what really helped the final product. High school interns are super helpful to companies like Sien and Co because they add new/young ideas and views that can help expand the industry.
Describe how the internship experience has helped you plan for next steps for college and/or career readiness
This was an amazing experience for me and just set into stone that I want to pursue this as a career. It gave me some of the knowledge I need to succeed in the industry. I have taken a few online fashion classes with the school Parsons over the years. I have enjoyed them all. But this summer I am taking it one step further and I am going to spend 3 weeks in Paris taking a fashion class. I will get 3 college credits and hopefully gain some amazing experiences along the way. I plan to apply to fashion schools like FIT and Parsons in New York City in the fall.