I had a great summer in Fargo, ND of all places. I had initially came to Fargo for the sole purpose of being a design intern at Sundog Interactive. Little did I know I would be doing way more than just design. I found friends, fun, and great coffee!
While I was a design intern I also had the opportunity to step up and do some development work; it was definitely a baptism by flaming code.
I can now confidently say I know what jQuery is, and that it is much easier that javascript… it’s fun!… once the bugs have been worked out. A big shout out to the awesome development team that was able to answer many of my questions. I learned a lot from Corey T. and Sunsanna O. when they had the chance to help me pare down and clean up my code.
It was a great experience to be able to watch Sundog’s design pros hard at work and play (we rocked the kickball field)! They taught me everything from new photoshop functions to solving some in-depth design quandaries that I would have from time to time. I also loved how Sundog paired each intern with an advisor/mentor during our time there. Kaite K. was my design mentor and we had a chance each week to sit down to chat about what I was doing both bad and good and how I could improve. It was amazingly helpful to have this weekly feedback on my performance and how our project was proceeding. The designers were an awesome group that really made me feel a part of the creative team as a whole. Even if they made me eat sushi ;p
Another unique part of my internship at Sundog was the intern team. It was an amazing experience to work have our own space – the Dog Park – to have meetings or just to work on our main project. It was definitely a good learning experience to work with a project manager intern and a creative writing/social media intern! I can say with confidence we all learned a TON from each other over the internship.
Coming away from my internship at Sundog was bittersweet. They had prepared me for my next internship adventure in the corn fields of Nebraska. I was excited for a new adventure but sad to leave all my friends in the plains of North Dakota.
Stay splendid,
Matt