Olympic senior learns valuable lessons at Livingston & Haven

Between a full-time job life-guarding, interning for the industrial technology company Livingston & Haven and embarking on a mission trip, Jenni Kesel, 17, had an action-packed summer and said she learned a lot along the way.

At Livingston & Haven, Jenni worked at the department in charge of making prototypes involving solar power. She helped create the new solar-powered cell phone chargers now at Carowinds.

In addition to doing a lot of hands-on engineering, Jenni said she learned a couple of important lessons from the internship.

"First thing, never be afraid to ask a question," she said. "At first, I was really afraid to because I felt like the underdog coming in, especially because I was the only girl intern."

Jenni said she initially felt insecurities about having to prove herself among the men. "I felt like I had a reputation to build, but I learned not to worry about it. The point of me being there was to learn."

Another lesson Jenni learned was to accept times when she failed and to learn from them.

She said she used to get frustrated when she was building something that would break or wouldn't work because she felt like she was creating more problems instead of helping.

"I had to take time to humble myself and say, this is why I'm here, to learn."