Empower Mid-Term
Introduction
My name is Rylee, and this summer I've been given the opportunity to be a part of the 2024 Empower internship at JNT Company, LLC in Manhattan, KS. I'm currently between my second and third year at Kansas State University where I'm studying advertising and public relations with a minor in graphic design and also earned my certificate of social media management in 2023. Following graduation I plan to keep working locally until I have enough knowledge and experience to begin working for a larger company. I enjoy being able to do many things in my career, so I would like to find a company that allows me to work in the marketing, graphic design, and social media areas. I'm originally from Wellsville, a small town in the middle of nowhere Kansas, but chose to attend KSU in the fall of 2022 because this is the town and university that felt most like home in a sense.
JNT Company, LLC
As previously mentioned, I'm a part of the 2024 Empower internship with JNT Company, LLC. JNT was founded in February of 2008 by Jeff Hake. They've worked closely with several Manhattan locals to make progress in establishing their businesses over the years. I had previously connected with the Sr. Digital Marketing Manager of JNT during the fall of 2023 after I'd reached out regarding an event being hosted by the KSU Ad Club. We had the honor of having Cameron Greenfield come speak to us about JNT and what he does for the company. This had been an amazing opportunity for everyone in attendance, but this is what led me to have an interest in JNT in the first place.
As an Empower intern, it's our responsibility overall to create two websites for clients we are given at the beginning of the five weeks. Along with the two sites, we're also given a digital advertising project and put in charge of all the social media accounts JNT has (Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn). Individually we're given access to any other projects that we may have interest in. Personally, I was given graphic design projects as well as the team projects, given my background with design. Throughout the last three weeks, I've taken a big step in my advancement of social media management because I'm the only one on the Empower team with a history of running professional social media accounts. I have mostly been in charge of all posting we've done and keeping track of our analytics for the final presentation we'll give in our final week of Empower.
I have genuinely enjoyed all of the projects I've been given during the internship so far. My favorite ones, however, have been the graphic design projects and social media takeover. Because these are not my main studies, I don't generally get a lot of practice for real-world experience, so it has been nice to be able to put that information into something that other people in the world will actually be able to see and appreciate. I think that being able to have knowledge to back up my decisions about posting and caption format has also benefitted my experience during the internship since there are a few other interns that also want to be a part of this but aren't sure how to best represent a brand or company. The individual graphic design projects have also allowed me to learn more about graphic design and the platforms used for this. I've gotten the chance to work fairly close with the sole graphic designer at JNT, learning which Adobe platforms are best for certain formats or tools; which is a bit more than I've learned in classes regarding the minor.
What I've Learned
In the end, I have already learned a lot about myself and my abilities in a professional setting. I have found that working in a team is far more difficult when there are others who also think they have more knowledge on a subject, even if they haven't recognized your background in certain subjects. The Empower internship has been an amazing growing experience for me as an individual. I have thoroughly enjoyed hearing all of the feedback from my higher ups and taking those critiques back to the drawing board in order to create something even better!
