Uncertainty can be an Answer
My excitement grows as I read an email from a colleague whom I used to work with at IXL Center during my last summer. The email came in with a bold heading of “IXL center is a Forbes Best Management Consulting Firm for 2017.” Additionally, the thrilling content draws in my attention more as it states with more details that “for a second year in a row, IXL Center has been recognized by Forbes as a Best Consulting Firm in Innovation, Growth, & New Business Models.” This is the result of “… surveying over 1,000 business executives,” and being able to make it to Forbes list, it means IXL Center is at a “… top 0.5% standing out of 50,000 consulting firms” from the survey pool. It is easy for me to feel a sense of pride now knowing that I will be interning for IXL Center again for this summer, but this pride did not come that easily a year ago when I was looking for an internship and then actually started as the only undergraduate intern in the IXL office.
I remembered I came into Babson “knowing” I wanted to concentrate in Accounting or something Finance related. But after some hands-on experience from FME and some accounting/finance related classes, it became very clear to me that these two concentrations do not align with my passion at all. When my peers around me started to talk about how they are ready to invest their summer in some big 4 accounting firms or those amazing big financial institutions, I was upset and pressured by their words. Because at that time, I was that confused and bewildered individual who has nothing plan on my agenda except for figuring out what I do not like. So I let myself be flexible with any possible working and internship options. I started to apply for non-accounting/finance related externship through Babson in order to have the opportunity to observe a specific profession. By drawing a connection between real-life business experiences with classroom knowledge after talking with various alums, I started to better understand myself as a person who actually enjoys working with motivated people on various projects. After a very time-consuming period of searching and applying, eventually, I landed myself with IXL Center. IXL Center has a vibrant and a fast-paced working atmosphere. It is very entrepreneurial and extremely diverse! It provides me with a real-business setting to adapt and work with elites in the consulting field. My experience with IXL-Center last summer is extremely valuable. I went through 2 different trainings in which IXL Center teaches an intern how to think, act and work like a consultant. I was given the option to take a Level 1 Innovation Associate Certification Exam to test my own training performance. Additionally, the firm also sets a solid foundation for me to understand the role of innovation within the field of Business. The trainings I received enhance my confidence and prepared me well with essential skills that I need for projects that was assigned to me later during my internship. For example, I had to organize and clean a computer-based data with over 1,000 clients’ information globally for IXL Center. Later, this information is being used as the base for a digital marketing campaign with the HubSpot team. I learned IT and digital marketing skills just from this one project even before I have taken any marketing and IT course.
Now my internship is starting in less than a week, I am excited to meet new challenge and take in more knowledge by interning at IXL Center again. I am thrilled to discover more of myself! So don’t panic if you don’t know what you want to do yet, because knowing what you don’t want to do is a start in finding out the right answer!