Chicago Summer Business Institute Intern Jzaphri Jackson Reflects on Lessons Learned at SDI

SDI is proud to participate in the Chicago Summer Business Institute’s internship program!

The Chicago Summer Business Institute, formerly the Chicago Summer Finance Institute, was founded in 1991 to provide paid summer internships for Chicago high school students and to introduce them to the financial services sector. The Institute’s goal is to give its participants an incentive to continue their education while preparing them for the business world.  SDI’s CSBI intern, Jzaphri Jackson, spent time at SDI’s headquarters office in downtown Chicago, where he worked amongst the SDI marketing, finance and real estate teams. Below are his thoughts, upon graduation day:

Hello, my name is Jzaphri Jackson and I am currently a rising junior at Providence St. Mel high school. I am also in a scholarship program called HighSight and it provides tutoring, mentoring, and leadership development for 4 years. This summer, HighSight was offering internships for many different organizations across Chicago so I decided to apply to an organization called CSBI (Chicago Summer Business Institute). At CSBI, marketing, IT, government, and financial companies are looking for students all over Chicago who are eager to work and learn. A couple weeks after my interview, CSBI believed I was qualified to participate in this year’s summer internship so they informed me that I would be interning for SDI(System Development Integration).

On my first day at SDI, I was amazed by how much my perception of the corporate/business world was wrong! The general atmosphere of this unknown place to me at the time was completely caring and encouraging, and it has managed to stay that way all the way into my last week interning here at SDI.

In the last 6 weeks I have learned so much about the corporate world from my co-workers and my supervisor. I have learned how to scan, and new researching methods. And I learned about the “Facebook for Professionals” website called LinkedIn. But the biggest and most important lesson I learned was that no matter what you are doing for a company, it is going to benefit everyone in the end – no matter if it is filing or researching.

This exposure to business world given to me by SDI will most definitely benefit me in the future and it is an experience I will never forget.

The entire SDI Team thanks Jzaphri for his hard work and positive attitude throughout the summer, and wishes Jzaphri all the best in his junior year and beyond!

To learn more about CSBI, visit http://www.chicagobusinessinstitute.com/about/.