Courses that prepared me to communicate within the organizational context


I have seen the impact of a liberal Arts degree during my internship. General studies courses and different Computer Science courses that required writing a research or a project paper helped me improve my writing and public speaking skills that have been very helpful in my internship.
During the first four weeks of my internship, I worked through the project's product management phase, where we conducted customer interviews and wrote a product specification. Although it was my first time conducting customer interviews, especially for a Technology product, I found it easy to build rapport, explain different technical concepts, and communicate effectively during the customer interviews. After the interviews, my team wrote a product specification detailing the different user scenarios and proposed designs for our feature. While writing our product specification, I utilized skills from different GSTR and research-intensive courses at Berea. It was not surprising that our managers and mentors regarded our product specification as thoroughly written.
Furthermore, attending a fully remote internship required great communication skills like being able to write a concise Microsoft Teams message explaining a code bug for my mentor to advise me on possible solutions or writing cold emails to full-time Software engineers requesting for coffee chats to learn about the different projects they are working on. It would be a lie to say that I am innately an effective communicator.
Last week, we had organization intern presentations where all interns in Microsoft Excel, Word, Planner, PowerPoint, and Office Scripts demoed their projects. The public speaking skills that I have attained as a Teaching Assistant co-lead and presenting in different courses helped me prepare and present confidently.

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