Students + Startups in the Jungle: Quinn's Final Reflections

At the beginning of my Jungle Disk internship, I never expected 10 weeks to go by so quickly. Compared to previous jobs where I’ve worked in retail, the whole summer went by in a blur. This is partially because the nature of the work I did was more closely aligned with my career interests, and additionally due to the nice relaxed environment at Jungle Disk. I never dreaded coming into work, but on the contrary was excited to wake up every day and do my job. While the perspective of a large company might be that a more casual workplace might lead to a lack of productivity, I found the opposite to be true. Because I wasn’t constantly being pressured to meet deadlines I felt comfortable and was likely more efficient than I would have been at a stricter company.

For the duration of my internship, I worked with the customer support team to improve their reporting tools. My project was focused on Zendesk, which is Jungle Disk’s customer relationship management (CRM) software. Additionally, I used a piece of software called GoodData, which allowed me to create data visualizations quickly. While familiarizing myself with these high-level tools, I was also able to brush up on some of my SQL knowledge. I utilized this to create custom metrics in the CRM software that made the desired information of the customer support team more accessible and clear. I believe that I was able to achieve my goal of learning more about data analytics and creating graphs that contained lots of information without being overly cluttered.

Another great experience that I had at Jungle Disk was managing a team of high school interns. Starting in July, myself and my fellow Students + Startups interns assembled small teams at Highlands High School to learn more about cybersecurity. It was rewarding to gain some experience working as the leader and manager of a team, something I had not encountered in my coursework at school.

This summer provided me with a lot of valuable insights about what direction I would like to go with my career. While before this internship I was largely unaware of the importance of data visualization, I now understand how important it is in the tech industry as well as other fields. After graduating from Trinity University in the spring, I would love to be able to combine my knowledge of programming with data analytics. Ultimately, I hope to use these skills in a way that makes the world a better place. I am very thankful to have had the opportunity to work at Jungle Disk, and I will miss my coworkers and the amazing culture here.