Reuben Barnes’s
LINK Experience
The LINK program had a huge impact on my overall view of what I wanted to do when I was done with high school and college. The whole point of the program was to give me an overall experience of the outside world and what it was like to be independent and on my own in the business world. Now when I knew that I had to choose the business that I would spend the next three weeks at I began to ponder on what it is that I truly love to do. I eventually concluded that I enjoy writing; this decision was due to my love of video games and the science fiction story behind each one. So when I went to DATO or the Durango Area Tourism Area I was able to do writing which helped me get a better understanding of what it was like, however there were many other skills and experiences that I encountered through the three weeks. A huge part of the whole learning process for me was my mentor, Paul, he was the most inspirational person that I have met and he walked me through the difficult tasks that I encountered.
Paul was the person who would be helping me through my project at DATO and was my mentor for the next three months. Although he was the leader of the project he wanted me to do this on my own for the greater experience and challenge. So he would help me if I had a question or needed a little bit of guidance. He was extremely inspirational to me because it takes me a little while to catch on to things, so when I was asking a lot of questions and sometimes butting in while he was extremely busy he would just calmly walk me through it until I understood. His calm and funny personality made DATO the perfect place for me to be, and understanding how he got through the work life really was a huge first step for my learning in the outside world.
When I went to DATO my assignment was to help them create a mobile app for their company. This app was an extremely important to them because in the spring and summer Durango goes crazy with all the tourists and they would make a lot of money off the app. Thankfully I was not tasked with the programming part because I am not strong with computers and technology, instead I was given a spreadsheet to fill out. The spreadsheet needed to be filled with enormous amounts of information about Durango; this included restaurants, bars, art centers, any place in Durango. This was where the writing was involved because I needed to write a description of each place that was in the spreadsheet, and it helped me to use creative writing. However as this was an advantage to my experience, I had a problem the instant I began to work; this problem was that I had no one else working with me. I learned through the LINK experience that for me to be much more productive is to have someone working with me.
Thankfully my wishes came true and it turned out that my best friend was not having a great time at the company he was interning at. So after a couple of meetings and conversations he was able to switch over to DATO. Even though this may not seem like it is not related to me or my LINK experience it truly was because when the both of us were working together I learned that I will need to have a partner in the work that I do. Once the both of us were settled in we started to crack down on the spreadsheet. One of the requirements for the spreadsheet was a logo and photo for each individual company. Now we did not have all of them and sense it is illegal to take pictures from the internet and use them I had to call each company to ask them if we could use their logo. This then developed a whole new skill for me to expand on.
A cold call for me was very difficult due to my lack of experience with the task, the first few calls consisted of shaky hands and a bunch of mumbling to the store owner. So to help my situation I wrote a script that would help me with what to say to the person when they picked up. If an owner did answer then I would explain to them who I worked for and what it was that I needed and why, after all the explaining was done I would politely ask them if they could email me the pictures so that we could put them on the spreadsheet. However the calling had two parts to it, the first call and then there was calling them back if they did not pick up or had not emailed me the photos. This was like a build up to the whole cold calling experience because calling the people again was even harder for me. The reason for that was because now I think that I am just making the people mad because I won’t stop bothering them, however the more weeks that passed the more times I had to re-call people.
Near the end of my LINK experience there was one last thing that happened which really helped wrap up the whole learning process. This was the interview that I had with Paul and he spoke about how he had started off and how tough things were for him in the beginning, but in the end he followed what he believed in and ended up being a really successful and happy man. The interview opened up my eyes and helped me understand what it is that I want to do in the future. So overall the LINK experience was the best thing that has happened to me so far in the junior year of high school and I cannot wait until my future business path is laid out for me.
LINK Experience
The LINK program had a huge impact on my overall view of what I wanted to do when I was done with high school and college. The whole point of the program was to give me an overall experience of the outside world and what it was like to be independent and on my own in the business world. Now when I knew that I had to choose the business that I would spend the next three weeks at I began to ponder on what it is that I truly love to do. I eventually concluded that I enjoy writing; this decision was due to my love of video games and the science fiction story behind each one. So when I went to DATO or the Durango Area Tourism Area I was able to do writing which helped me get a better understanding of what it was like, however there were many other skills and experiences that I encountered through the three weeks. A huge part of the whole learning process for me was my mentor, Paul, he was the most inspirational person that I have met and he walked me through the difficult tasks that I encountered.
Paul was the person who would be helping me through my project at DATO and was my mentor for the next three months. Although he was the leader of the project he wanted me to do this on my own for the greater experience and challenge. So he would help me if I had a question or needed a little bit of guidance. He was extremely inspirational to me because it takes me a little while to catch on to things, so when I was asking a lot of questions and sometimes butting in while he was extremely busy he would just calmly walk me through it until I understood. His calm and funny personality made DATO the perfect place for me to be, and understanding how he got through the work life really was a huge first step for my learning in the outside world.
When I went to DATO my assignment was to help them create a mobile app for their company. This app was an extremely important to them because in the spring and summer Durango goes crazy with all the tourists and they would make a lot of money off the app. Thankfully I was not tasked with the programming part because I am not strong with computers and technology, instead I was given a spreadsheet to fill out. The spreadsheet needed to be filled with enormous amounts of information about Durango; this included restaurants, bars, art centers, any place in Durango. This was where the writing was involved because I needed to write a description of each place that was in the spreadsheet, and it helped me to use creative writing. However as this was an advantage to my experience, I had a problem the instant I began to work; this problem was that I had no one else working with me. I learned through the LINK experience that for me to be much more productive is to have someone working with me.
Thankfully my wishes came true and it turned out that my best friend was not having a great time at the company he was interning at. So after a couple of meetings and conversations he was able to switch over to DATO. Even though this may not seem like it is not related to me or my LINK experience it truly was because when the both of us were working together I learned that I will need to have a partner in the work that I do. Once the both of us were settled in we started to crack down on the spreadsheet. One of the requirements for the spreadsheet was a logo and photo for each individual company. Now we did not have all of them and sense it is illegal to take pictures from the internet and use them I had to call each company to ask them if we could use their logo. This then developed a whole new skill for me to expand on.
A cold call for me was very difficult due to my lack of experience with the task, the first few calls consisted of shaky hands and a bunch of mumbling to the store owner. So to help my situation I wrote a script that would help me with what to say to the person when they picked up. If an owner did answer then I would explain to them who I worked for and what it was that I needed and why, after all the explaining was done I would politely ask them if they could email me the pictures so that we could put them on the spreadsheet. However the calling had two parts to it, the first call and then there was calling them back if they did not pick up or had not emailed me the photos. This was like a build up to the whole cold calling experience because calling the people again was even harder for me. The reason for that was because now I think that I am just making the people mad because I won’t stop bothering them, however the more weeks that passed the more times I had to re-call people.
Near the end of my LINK experience there was one last thing that happened which really helped wrap up the whole learning process. This was the interview that I had with Paul and he spoke about how he had started off and how tough things were for him in the beginning, but in the end he followed what he believed in and ended up being a really successful and happy man. The interview opened up my eyes and helped me understand what it is that I want to do in the future. So overall the LINK experience was the best thing that has happened to me so far in the junior year of high school and I cannot wait until my future business path is laid out for me.