Meet Scyler - Not Your Average Summer Intern

When you think of being an intern do you see that poor stressed out college student running about delivering coffees and collecting lunch orders? Often times this is how we see interns portrayed in movies and on social media. At TTEC, our interns are having a lot more fun than that, and our Leadership Development Internship program located in Denver, Colorado is a great place to begin telling the story!

Fourteen rising seniors from across the United States make up the 2021 Leadership Development Intern (LDI) program. Each of them calls a different state their home, ranging from California to New Hampshire. Some of them are spending the summer in Denver for the internship to be closer to TTEC’s Global Headquarters in the Denver area. The group is filled with students who have diverse backgrounds and experiences, something many of the interns explain to be a great strength for the group. These undergrad students come with a wide range of majors, some putting them to the test this summer, and some leaving them behind to learn something completely new – a widely encouraged route in the program.  

One shining example of an LDI getting outside of his comfort zone is Scyler W., who is working in the Learning and Performance department here at TTEC. Scyler currently attends Howard University in Washington D.C., majoring in Philosophy with minors in theater arts and psychology. With such a vibrant undergraduate background, Scyler was open to new challenges when joining this unique internship program. When the summer began, he started working with artificial intelligence bots with aims to improve the way bots can teach different diversity programs.

After wrapping up his first project of the summer, Scyler then shifted his focus to something with an even bigger scale – ESG ratings of market competitors. Sounds complicated, right? I am sure you’re thinking “Scyler, what is an ESG rating?” The acronym is comprised of environmental, social and governance components that are scored by a variety of agencies. This rating gives stakeholders a glance into how companies are impacting our world in those three areas.

Scyler’s next step within the project is to lead and facilitate focus group discussions with site leaders across the North American region – an international scope that few non-TTEC interns get the chance to work with. Within these discussions he hopes to add to the research his team has already done and gain more insight on how to improve specific aspects of the score. The end goal of the project? Recommend a universal environmental policy that may become a benchmark standard for each region of the company to follow in the future. How much bigger of an impact can we get?

To learn more about TTEC’s journey with ESG, read this blog about how the TTEC Women In Leadership group is doing their part!

While this isn’t Scyler’s field of study, he says he has gained a new perspective on environmental efforts throughout this project. Before Scyler joined TTEC he was involved in the Optimistic Club, where he did many volunteer projects such as highway clean ups and other community service work. Scyler has loved continuing his efforts of researching something that has an impact on the entire planet. Who says philosophy majors can’t ask those very important questions about the environment?

If you’d like to hear more from Scyler about his projects during his summer internship with TTEC, tune into TTEC’s Facebook Live Event on July 29th at 3:00 p.m. celebrating National Intern Day!

(And a special thank you to our own Leadership Development Intern, Kallyn Mai, for writing this story and spending her summer with our Talent Acquisition Marketing team ...from your home team - we'll miss you and the crew but we'll be here for you all should you need anything!)