Watching His Future: Senior Liam Jolles interns at the Garmin facility in Olathe in hopes to prepare for his future career in technology.

Walking through the Country Club Plaza stores with his friends, senior Liam Jolles heard his phone ringing.

Congratulations, we’re extremely happy to offer you an internship here at Garmin.

After waiting eight months to hear back from Garmin about an internship, he stopped in front of the Lululemon store and screamed “Let’s go!” at the top of his lungs.

Garmin is a big time tech company started out of KC that specializes in sports watches and activity trackers for a variety of different sports like running, golf, cycling and swimming.

Liam has always been good at math and problem solving since he was a child. Combining that with his interest in computer science will help him get a head start in the professional world and allow him to learn more about how computer science is used in a professional setting according to Liam.

“I feel like it was just a perfect opportunity for me,” Liam said. “I get to work at a major tech company gaining experience I need for the field I want to go into while also seeing if I enjoy it or not.”

Getting the internship was no easy task. When he first learned about Garmin’s internship at a job fair at the Center of Academic Achievement in April 2023. He gave them his resume and they stayed in touch, with Jolles completing several small interviews in person and over the phone this summer.

However, Liam didn’t get a response on whether he got the internship for months.

Liam didn’t let that stop him from getting an answer, as he constantly called and emailed Garmin waiting for a response. It wasn’t until September that Liam and real world learning counselor James Dusek got together with Garmin to see if they had any interest in Liam. 

“It’s definitely a testament to his dedication,” Dusek said. “He contacted me every week as we were trying to find out what the answer was so it really speaks to his diligence.”

Liam is now four weeks into his six month internship. He works 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday — fitting perfectly with his reduced schedule since he doesn’t have a sixth or a seventh hour.

So far Liam has toured the building and seen the four different parts of the company including the Marine, Outdoor, Fitness and Aviation. He also got the opportunity to shadow the many different positions employees have, like team leaders of different departments and managers of product support.

“We’ve had high up people in the company come and talk to the interns and the number one thing they told us to do was keep asking them questions,” Liam said. “So I’ve always got that in the back of my head.”

Liam realizes how important it is for someone his age to be working at a cutting edge corporation like Garmin, which is why he’s eager to learn everything there is to know about being in the tech industry.

“I think it’s such an important opportunity for him,” Liam’s mom Michelle Jolles said. “There’s only four students who get the internship he has so when you get that opportunity to learn with a company like that in your potential field it’s really good.”

Still waiting to hear from computer science schools like UC San Diego and Cal Berkley, Liam believes the internship will give him a leg up in the real world

“I could possibly be hired as a full time employee at Garmin after the internship ends,” Liam said. “Or I could go to college and someday have a job in cyber security or software engineering. There’s just so many possibilities with an internship like this.”