Chad Lenser-Featured Intern

Menards is a large home improvement chain with over 350 stores located throughout the Midwest. John Menard founded the company back in 1960 while he was in college. Menards started off as an agricultural poll-building company, but has expanded to sell over ten thousand different home improvement products and even groceries!

My role as a DBA intern was to assist the DBA department with performing various administrative tasks and to help resolve support tickets. DBAs are responsible for the storage, management, and availability of a company’s most valuable resource – its data. I worked with a lot of important information and was assigned tasks which if not completed properly, could have been very costly. The main project I was assigned to work on at Menards was the creation of the Vendor Portal model and database.

One goal I had was to develop positive relationships with my coworkers and superiors. While interning I built positive relationships with all of the people in my department, and even created relationships with people from other departments through various collaborating projects. Another goal I set was to gain experience and comfort working with new database related software. In addition to completing the goals I set, I was able to further develop my critical thinking and problem solving skills. 

When exploring internships I was looking primarily for business analyst or database administration positions. I was interested in both of these options because they require skills matching my skillset. Business analysts require excellent communication skills, which I possess from having worked over six years in hospitality.  Database administrators require strong problem solving skills and the ability to stay calm under pressure, both of which I excelled at when I worked as a cook in high school. Following the completion of my internship, I would say my experience has confirmed my desire to become a database administrator. 

Advice to peers: The main emphasis of an internship is on learning. The people you work with will not expect you to know everything when you first start your internship, so avoid putting extra stress on yourself if you do not know how to do something. Ask a lot of questions, and do your best to build personable relationships with all of your coworkers. The relationships you build are just as valuable as the experience you acquire.