Thursday, September 23, 2010

Interning Locally

By Jessica Grafton

For the past year since graduating in ’09, I’ve had the great opportunity to intern at an office furniture dealership here in Carbondale. I work under an Interior Designer, who is also an SIU Alumni, and was able to record some of my IDEP hours for NCIDQ because of this.


As an intern, my job description entails space planning, material and finish selections, material library maintenance, client and team collaboration, specifications and quotations, and bids. It has been a very well-rounded internship since I’ve not only been exposed to the design aspect of the interior design field, but also to the budget and number crunching that goes on behind the scenes with the client. I also think that writing the specs and quotations has made me feel that I understand a little more about the industry and how many different entities go into a particular project.

Recently I got the opportunity to work on a government bid project, and was sort of set loose to handle it on my own. It was very overwhelming at first, but the sense of accomplishment after we won the bid was amazing. I really felt as though I was really a part of the industry and capable of making it out there in the real world.

Picture: www.kimballoffice.com

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