Noah Simpson is a project manager based out of Indianapolis. He graduated this previous May from the University of Indianapolis with a Bachelors in Human Resources. During his time at the Uindy, he was the founder of water polo and entrepreneurship clubs. Noah also served as a business liaison for the University and completed three internships with corporations across Indiana.
Any college student who has gone through orientation should know that getting an internship is important. However, it is not always made clear to students why an internship is important. My first year at the University of Indianapolis, I was blessed to have a faculty mentor hold me accountable on developing myself not just as a student, but as a communicator. My education and mentors provided me with a base skill set to succeed. However, I have found that the huge difference in my abilities as a communicator today versus when I was a freshman can be attributed to my internships. The key soft skills I took away from my internships were the ability to write and present professionally. These can be taught in a classroom, but there isn’t a way to simulate presenting in front of a real-life client. In addition to improving my communication soft skills, my internships taught me to be more flexible when given a challenging situation and how to better enable those around me for success.
Flexibility may seem odd to lump in as a soft skill, but a recurring theme throughout all three of my internships was that employers wanted a flexible employee. At my second internship, my employer expected me to be knowledgeable in my major, human resources, but also to learn about their distribution system and become an expert in a field that I had no prior training in. I had to “flex” and not only learn about the field, but create a solution to the problem they had presented. For that employer, it was more important that I be flexible and willing to step outside my comfort zone, than what my knowledge was in my field.
The skill to be flexible became vital as I entered the workforce in a field outside of my major. My employer, like my internship, needed an employee that could flex into uncomfortable situations and learn new concepts efficiently.
The last soft skill I would like to cover is enablement. Enabling others and creating a strong legacy of successful peers and connections is the most efficient way to find success for yourself. Society puts those who enable others to succeed in a very high regard. These are your coaches, teachers, mentors, friends and family. The ability to enable one another, to place the advancement of someone else at the top your personal priority list, is the key to long term success and the most important soft skill one can learn. If there is one thing the leaders of my internships have taught me is that what you leave behind at any job is the people you have met and made better.
