For Madison Freeman, the path to a summer internship at one of the world's most recognized technology companies didn’t begin in a boardroom or a recruiting event, but on LinkedIn. She was pushed to start taking the platform seriously in a Creative Entrepreneurship class taught by Professor Katie Webber. Soon after, she found the application for a competitive UX Design internship with IBM on the DevOps team.
After a two-month interview process that included a technical interview and a one-on-one with her future manager, Freeman accepted the position where she will do exactly what she has spent her college career preparing for: designing intuitive, human-centered digital experiences at scale.
Her preparation for that moment was shaped by Webber’s class. Webber equipped students with practical career tools, walking them through LinkedIn strategy, portfolio development and resume best practices while also assigning them projects that mirrored real-world design assignments.
"She didn't just teach us design," said Freeman. "She taught us how to be designers in the real world. This internship is the perfect opportunity to apply everything I've been learning and building at JU in a real-world, high-impact environment.”
Freeman's relationship with design and technology started long before college. In middle school, she taught herself HTML and JavaScript and began building her own websites and video games. What began as curiosity eventually crystallized into a calling when she realized that the most meaningful application of her skills was using them to help people.
"UX/UI design is not just about making something look beautiful or function smoothly," said Freeman. "It's about understanding what someone actually needs, where they're struggling, and designing a solution that genuinely makes their experience better."
The IBM internship is one step in a larger journey. Freeman’s long-term goal is a UX design role at a company like Google or Apple, somewhere her work can reach millions of people.
“One of the unique aspects of being a student at Jacksonville University is that, as a small university, faculty members can offer independent studies for motivated students. This provides an opportunity for students to customize their degree and explore areas of interest more deeply,” said Webber. “Maddie will be completing an independent study with me in the fall focused on User Experience and Interface Design. The plan for that course is to develop a data dashboard and a new product from concept to completion.”
