Ashley decided it was time to break out of her comfort zone.
“The beginning of this internship was definitely the hardest for me. My team was learning Adobe Creative Cloud, and I was just overwhelmed. I didn’t know what to do, so I would constantly ask the staff for help. Even though my teammates and I all go to the same small school and I see them all the time, we didn’t speak. That’s the reason I didn’t have much confidence working with them.
Over time I grew out of it, and now I honestly love the environment I’m in. It takes everyone to make something good. It’s not just about one person. I think as a team, we tried our hardest and showed ourselves at our best.”
I am…
// 16
// Outgoing, unique, caring
// A student at Metro Heights Academy
I dream of…
// Going to college and finding a career I love
Sharing her team’s project with family and friends; collaborating with intern Ezra.
She embodied the value of Authenticity.
“The values I grew most in were empathy and authenticity. Even though everyone has some empathy hidden inside themselves, I used to show no empathy for anything. But being at Rêve, I started showing more of my feelings. If I didn’t like someone’s work, as much as I wanted to tell them that I like it, I had to be honest. It’s hard when you think it will hurt their feelings, but at the end of day, we should be doing anything to improve. I want my teammates to feel even better about their work after I give feedback, not disappointed because I didn’t tell them how they could do better.
It used to be that during presentations, I would not know how to phrase my words well. I would struggle to speak without looking at the board. So we practiced and practiced, and the last time we presented, I didn’t even look at the board! But unfortunately, my team made some last-minute changes to the presentation and the client called out that my words and the slide didn’t match up. That’s okay though, because now it’s a story, and a story is always good to tell.”
Ashley and Andi present their team’s ideas on youth entrepreneurship.
She developed a new side of herself.
“This experience has changed me a lot. I used to speak like I was a regular teenager, which I am. But I realized I couldn’t speak to clients the way I would speak to a friend of mine. It was challenging in the beginning to change that behavior. It’s changed me in a positive way because I can use what I’ve learned in my future job.
If I had a classmate who was thinking about coming to Rêve, I would tell them to go for it. Experimenting with new opportunities isn’t always going to go your way, but by the time you try it, you’ll realize you should have done it a long time ago.”
See the difference that Rêve Academy makes.
Ashley gained both technical and professional skills in her internship—and she didn’t have to pay a cent. In fact, we paid her a fair wage for her work each week, while she learned:
Professional skills
// Empathy
// Authenticity
// Collaboration
// Achievement
// Ingenuity
// Agility
Technical skills
// Social media management
// Illustrator
// Photoshop
// Project management
// Agile development
Rêve Academy’s student interns of spring 2018.
Help students along their path.
If you have a heart for students, we have a place for you.
Become a digital volunteer and help our interns as they work on real-world projects. Or show our kids what an ordinary day looks like for a working professional. There are lots of ways to get involved, so don’t be shy—we can’t wait to meet you!