In Drexel job, Carver junior improves her efficiency and teamwork skills

“We learned to help each other.”

This article was originally published in The Notebook. In August 2020, The Notebook became Chalkbeat Philadelphia.

As she heads into her junior year at George Washington Carver High School of Engineering & Science, Shikeah Williams has a lot of options to consider.

She might want to go to college for a pre-med course so she can become a surgeon. She might want to study linguistics, which would probably mean going abroad. She plays varsity volleyball at Carver, and she’d like to continue with the sport in college.

But whichever path she chooses, she thinks her internship at Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business will help her down the road.

“I learned to be more efficient with my time, who I spend time with,” said Williams, 17, who lives in West Philadelphia. “I learned leadership skills.”

And she was immediately using some of those skills, working at a LeBow camp that taught teenagers about financial literacy and helped them with long-term and short-term goals.

One task she recalled was helping her supervisor work out schedules for Drexel student-athletes and make sure that their classroom and practice schedules were not in conflict.

“I helped file some papers, get some offices in order, shred papers,” she said.

She often worked with other interns and said she learned how to be selective in choosing work partners, based on their skills, aptitudes, and work habits.

“It helped my teamwork skills,” she said. “We learned to help each other.”