Staff Spotlight: Launch Program Director Kaleigh Watson
Here at Forge, Kaleigh Watson is our Launch Program Director. Launch is our summer internship program where students receive in-depth training in a technical skill area with Forge before going on to intern with one of our partner companies. Our program would definitely not run as smoothly without Kaleigh and we want to pull the curtain back on the woman who makes it all possible. We asked Kaleigh a few questions about her experience at Forge and what it is like to work as the Launch Program Director.
What does it mean to be the Launch Program Director?
Kaleigh: When it comes to Launch, I get to touch pretty much every part of the program from recruiting and interviewing applicants to helping market the program to working with our team of instructors & TAs for the program, to training students on key soft-skills, to working hand in hand with our company partners to help get students matched with internships. I get to not only make big decisions to shape & improve the program each year but also implement many of them myself, which I love!
What do you like most about working at Forge?
Kaleigh: There’s a lot I love about my job. First and foremost is getting to work with my students! I enjoy working with people in general, but the students in Launch thoroughly impress me year after year. We consistently recruit classes of Launch students who are driven, passionate about learning, upbeat, willing to be challenged, and great team players. It’s truly a joy to work with students like ours.
What is your favorite part about Launch?
Kaleigh: My absolute favorite part of Launch is the 2nd or 3rd week of summer training when students really start to find their groove. You can see a huge jump in pretty much everyone’s skills, as well as their confidence in themselves, from day one of training to the end. Then we get to send everyone off to their internships knowing that they’re going to rock it. It’s just a great feeling to see our students succeed and be proud of themselves and their progress, and I really do love that I get to play a part in helping make that happen.
Is working as the Launch Program Director what you expected?
Kaleigh: For someone who was afraid work would be boring after graduation, I’ve definitely been proven wrong. The work I do in the fall looks drastically different from what I do in the spring, in the summer, etc. My work shifts a lot throughout the year, and most weeks look pretty different from the next, too. It’s both refreshing and challenging (good challenging) to change gears frequently while also balancing a lot of different things at once.
What’s your Forge Story?
Kaleigh: It’s a pretty good story actually. I remember coming across the Forge website (then HackCville) my first year at UVA. This was back in 2014 and things were a lot different then. In all honesty, the website explaining what HackCville was didn’t make a ton of sense but I just remember feeling like, “There’s something cool & different going on here and I want to be a part of it”. I actually remember my parents came to visit one weekend and while we were eating breakfast on the Pigeon Hole patio I pointed at the Forge house and told my mom and dad that I was going to join that club next semester.
Hilariously, I actually got denied from the first Forge program I applied to that spring of my first year (to this day I’ve banned all our staff from hunting down my old application, I’m sure it was bad haha). But fast forward a few years and in the spring of my 3rd year, I’d just gotten back from a semester abroad in the fall. Being abroad was such an incredible experience, but when I got back I felt like, wow, I really need something new to challenge me after that. So I applied again and luckily got a spot in Exposure, Forge’s digital photography course.
Exposure was exactly what I needed at the time — getting to learn something new and meet new people, who I never would have become friends with otherwise. I learned a lot in Exposure and really loved being a part of the Forge community, so I stayed involved until I graduated and then took my first job here. The rest is history!
We hope you enjoyed getting to know Launch Program Director Kaleigh Watson. Forge wouldn’t be the same without her!
