Being a senior in college, I’ve heard my earfuls on the need to “gain experience.” What is this elusive experience that no college graduate seems to have? How do we gain it and why are so many graduates seemingly unprepared for the “real world”?

In search of this experience that seemed so necessary, I applied to intern at Absolute. The first day I came into Absolute, I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, especially having no prior marketing or advertising knowledge. I was afraid that my art, English, and Spanish majors would be a poor fit with my graphic design internship. Looking back on the past three months, I think I’ve been proven wrong.

I was surprised to find that my first project was from an actual client. I guess I figured that still being a student learning graphic design, I would start on conceptual work like we do in class – creating logos for fake companies, brainstorming ideas for fake campaigns, etc.

But I’ve been pleased to find that every design I’ve worked on at Absolute has been of practical use to a certain company or organization. In that sense, Absolute has been a great place to gain real world experience. Whether it’s meeting with clients, working on teams to complete a project, or brainstorming new ideas to be directly approved by the client, this is real time experience that can’t be gained at school, behind the books. In addition, my background has been very beneficial as I’ve been asked to design, write, edit, and conceptualize on numerous accounts. Maybe that’s what everybody means by “real world” experience…