As I travel through this internship, I realize there have been many nuggets of wisdom given to us by all of the people we have met at Red Ventures. Our mentors are Valerie Secker who is a Program Manager on the RV Learning and Development team and Josh Enneking also a Program Manager on the RV Learning and Development team at Red Ventures. Working with both of them has been an exciting, insightful and interesting journey because we’ve learned so much during this process.
The most interesting moment of my internship was attending so many different meetings and meeting people that have become an integral part of the Red Ventures family. We met Sunita and Gunjan who are a part of the Paths Forward Program with Red Ventures; which is a program for people to restart their careers with companies that will appreciate the skills those employees have to offer and the contribution they can make. Red Ventures
I was so impressed listening to their stories, Sunita explained how supported they are throughout the program and how these returnships are based on the skills the company is looking for and how they can use those skills within Red Ventures. She also talked about how she was out of the workforce for 7+ years, she was nervous to interview because the technology had changed so much while she was away from the workforce. Sunita had to take time to learn the new technology because of the gap in her learning, but Path Forward helped ease her nerves about the process.
It took Gunjan and Sunita time to become more confident in their work because her team was helpful with the learning process, and their initial task were not timebound, but they were allowed the time to complete task; which helped them with their work process. They spoke of the basic languages such as JavaScript, HTML, CSS to start with you can actually do a lot with these jobs such as become a Freelancer, Build Websites, or Front End Engineer to name a few of the jobs. Learn about what a Returnship is here.
One of the biggest challenges during this process was not being in person to experience the ins and outs of Red Ventures as well as be face to face with our Mentors. The schedule was so well written, but I believe being in person would have not made those on Zoom feel as though it was one extra meeting where you had to be on camera. I did get a lot out of each meeting, but being in the midst of a pandemic it would have been great to be live and in person.
On another note, my biggest takeaway was how nice everyone was to Desmond and myself. I had no idea there were so many amazing things going on at Red Ventures, and it was just great to see. The level of planning that went into our Internship from Valerie / Josh at the helm was flawlessly executed, very well put together, and it seemed that each day we had the opportunity to experience another side of Red Ventures. I didn’t even know the have an HBCU Program that develops college students into excellent future leaders at Red Ventures. Read about it here.
Since, I’ve had time to work on the internship and get an inside view of Red Ventures it has change my knowledge of career opportunities within Computer Science and Information Technology Careers. All the different jobs you could do within the CS & IT field has really helped shape how I teach my students this year and encourage them to continue to learn how to code. I didn’t know level of education and experience is one in the same because someone could learn how to code by watching videos, others could learn how to code hands on in a class, but there’s also the opportunity to work with a company such as Red Ventures who offers programs such as Road to Hire, Path Forward, Summer Internships, Apprenticeships, and their HBCU Program.
Again, this internship was amazing, it allowed me to see another side of the corporate world through a teacher lens, and allow me to see what the future could hold for our students. I hope this is impactful to someone reading this or someone that may need a Path Forward that could catapult you into the amazing career you deserve.
