Most students wouldn’t be too excited about sticking around Provo, Utah for their summer internship, but Nicole Tucker seized the opportunity to work at not one but two local internships –Race Entry and Skill Struck.
As Nicole began looking for an internship, she diligently searched to find the best option for her. Although she received an offer from a company, it wasn’t exciting to her and she didn’t feel she would grow in the ways she wanted to grow. She was still looking when she came across an old BYU Bridge posting from Race Entry, a software company for online marathons, half marathons, and 5k registrations. Taking the initiative, she called the number to ask if they were still hiring. Though they weren’t planning to take anyone on, her impressive resume won her a position on their development team.
Likewise, Nicole found her opportunity at Skill Struck when she stumbled upon a booth on campus in the Tanner building. This start-up company hosts in-person summer camps and online courses for kids and teenagers, inspiring and enabling them to explore the world of coding. Nicole works on the development team as a front-end developer.
“If I had applied for these jobs any earlier, I wouldn’t have had the skills and experience to qualify for the position,” she says. “The IS Core gave me all the experience I needed for these companies to be interested in what I had to offer.” She encourages future IS Core students to relax if they don’t get an internship early in the recruiting season. “You’ll gain the skills and knowledge you need as the year continues that will qualify you for a good internship.”
Nicole came to the Information Systems program from a graphic design background. “I like design and problem solving, and IS lets me do both,” Nicole says. By working with smaller and newer companies, Nicole has been involved in the process of developing and launching new products, rather than just maintaining existing ones.
She wants to continue to use her creative design and logical problem-solving skills to help kids find a love for learning. “Learning to love learning brings them their first experiences of accomplishing something or being successful. It sets them up to succeed for the rest of their lives.”
Her passion for learning and enabling kids and teenagers to learn and create aligns perfectly with the Skill Struck mission. “It’s all about making an impact on people around you and helping kids and teenagers have that experience too.” Giving kids and teenagers the opportunity to learn to code and impact others makes being a full-time employee at the company a dream job for Nicole. So even though she didn’t travel to an “exotic” destination for her summer internships, she’s found a work that she believes in and that has set her up for a future career.
To learn more about what’s happening at Skill Struck visit https://www.skillstruck.com/
