By Kaitlyn Palacios

As a Genesys Works young professional, I’m employed at the Toro Company as an I.S. Analyst Intern. At first, I had no idea what I was doing nor had any idea what an I.S. Analyst Intern does. After training with previous interns, we – my fellow interns and I – jumped straight into this role, and while we had support from others who worked in I.S., the role felt pretty daunting nonetheless. However, I believe our mistakes have allowed us to continuously improve in our role as I.S. Analyst interns.

As I.S. Analyst interns we complete a broad range of tasks, such as preparing computers for new hires, receiving equipment back from employees Toro, replacing old computers for employees leaving Toro, replacing old computers for employees, shipping and working with a variety of people in different Toro locations, pushing software to computers, and more. It was pretty challenging at first and even can be now. However, my internship breakthrough has been completing more and more task each month. Tasks are tracked in system where we can manage, create, and close assignments when we are done. When I started, I completed about 30 tasks in a month – not bad, however, I’ve increased that amount each month. Last month, my breakthrough moment was completing 70 tasks, more than double of what used to be my monthly average. With such a variety of tickets, it’s quite hectic and has pushed me to use skills such as time management and communication more.

Now, my goal is to complete even more tasks this month! Every month I’ve been improving my skills with computers and technology and have been challenging myself to pick up more tasks when I see them. In order to complete all of these tasks I’ve had to work on my problem-solving skills and try multiple angles on how to solve an issue. It’s been a little more stressful as I continue to challenge myself and improve, but in the end, it’s super rewarding. When I look at the work I’ve accomplished for people who depend on me to help them with their computers, it’s astonishing to me. If you would have asked me to do any of this last year, I would have no clue what you were talking about. I wasn’t particularly great at working with computers and didn’t even know where to begin. Now, I’m constantly learning more about computers in order to gain more experience and help me do even better in my internship.

Overall, this breakthrough at my internship – completing double the number of tasks as when I started – was a big accomplishment to me, and it has helped me work on critical skills along the way. I hope that as I near the end of my internship later this year I can continue to improve and complete more and more tasks that were once difficult and more time-consuming to do.

Kaitlyn Palacios is a Class of 2021 intern who currently holds a position at Toro. She is also a student ambassador for the Genesys Works program, seeking to recruit the next class of young professionals from her high school, Burnsville Senior High School.