Summer internships can be intimidating. There are so many questions swirling around in my head. What are my days going to be like and what type of projects will I be responsible for? Will I gain the knowledge I need to make an informed decision about my career path? Am I going to have the experience I am hoping for? After spending a full summer interning here at PDG, I found that the experience and knowledge gained was far beyond what I was expecting and prepared me for what was to come after graduation. Here are the top three takeaways from my summer experience:
COLLABORATION
As with any successful business or team, collaboration is very important and I learned that right away. Being in an environment where coordination, organization, and communication is crucial to keep projects on track, collaboration between one another was a task in itself! Team members and myself were constantly working together to coordinate material selections, meetings, sample orders, project developments, and more. These opportunities helped broaden my knowledge of the business and how important it is to work with one another to achieve the best possible outcome.
THE VALUE OF THE MATERIAL LIBRARY
A big lesson I learned is there is no one size fits all when it comes to materials and using several different ones to achieve the desired design. I spent many hours in the material library handling carpet, tile, wallcoverings, paint, LVT, felt, stone, and much more and therefore was able to become familiar with each material and its attributes. Understanding that each material has its own qualities and have different fits for different projects has prepared me to be able to start selecting finishes for future projects.
CONNECTION WITH REPS
Given the project designers have many sample requests, I quickly found the importance of building a relationship with brand representatives. Having the opportunity to reach out to representatives with questions, sample requests, pricing, and even order placement was beneficial to my learning experience. Brand representatives can be an excellent resource and are the first to jump in when you have a design idea or questions about a product. As a result, I was able to grow my knowledge in each product as well as get exposure to the variety of materials and products out there.
As the summer came to a close I could absolutely say the experience I had at PDG allowed me to dip my toes into the world of design and provided me invaluable insight I could apply both back at school-and beyond. It taught me that it is much more than furniture, fixtures, and lighting; it’s about hard work, building connections with one another, having a passion for what you are doing, innovations, encountering problems and finding solutions, and most importantly creating spaces that clients will love.
