Design Student Lands UX Internship at IBM and Sets Sights on Silicon Valley
UX Design and major tech companies can feel like distant worlds when you are still in college. But Madison Freeman, a student at Jacksonville University, proved that the path between the two can be much shorter than it seems.
While pursuing her undergraduate degree in design, she landed an internship at IBM — one of the most recognized technology companies in the world — and will be working directly on the DevOps team, putting everything she learned about User Experience into practice.
The most interesting part of this story is that it all started pretty simply: a Creative Entrepreneurship class, a dedicated professor named Katie Webber, and a LinkedIn profile taken more seriously.
No career fairs or privileged connections. Just preparation, consistency, and the right timing. 🎯
How It All Started: From LinkedIn to a Position at IBM
For Madison, the turning point was a Creative Entrepreneurship class taught by Professor Katie Webber. In that course, students were encouraged to treat LinkedIn as a serious professional tool. It was not just about creating a polished profile — it was about building a strategic presence, with an updated portfolio, clear descriptions of experiences, and relevant connections in the User Experience field.
It was on that very platform that Madison found the listing for a competitive UX Design internship at IBM, within the DevOps team. From there, she entered a selection process that lasted about two months and included some pretty demanding stages: a detailed technical interview and a one-on-one conversation with the person who would become her future manager.
After making it through all those phases, she accepted the position — and she will be doing exactly what she spent her entire college career preparing to do: designing intuitive, people-centered digital experiences at scale.
It sounds simple when you sum it up like that, but every step required real preparation. And a big part of that preparation came from the way Jacksonville University structures its design programs.
How Jacksonville University’s UX Design Program Prepared Madison
Jacksonville University has been investing heavily in programs that bridge theory and the job market, and their UX Design program is a great example of that. Madison was not just learning about design principles or watching slide presentations. She was building a real portfolio, developing projects that simulated real-world corporate challenges, and most importantly, being mentored by professors with hands-on industry experience.
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Professor Katie Webber equipped students with practical career tools, guiding them through LinkedIn strategies, portfolio development, and resume best practices. On top of that, she assigned projects that mirrored real design work — the kind of exercises that truly prepare you for the job market.
This type of education makes a massive difference when it comes time to face a hiring process at a company the size of IBM, because the recruiter does not just want to hear what you studied — they want to see what you can deliver.
Madison put it pretty directly:
She did not just teach us design. She taught us how to be designers in the real world. This internship is the perfect opportunity to apply everything I have been learning and building at JU in a real, high-impact environment.
What makes this story even more relevant is that it shatters the idea that only people with privileged connections or degrees from the most prestigious universities can land internships at major companies. Madison was at a regional university, following a structured path and making the right choices with what was available to her. The result was a real opportunity, at a real company, with real responsibilities — and that counts for far more than any fancy title on a resume. 🚀
A Passion That Started Long Before College
Madison’s relationship with design and technology did not begin in college. Back in middle school, she was already teaching herself HTML and JavaScript, building her own websites and even video games. What started as teenage curiosity gradually evolved into something deeper as she realized that the most meaningful application of her skills was using them to help people.
That understanding shaped her entire perspective on UX Design today. For her, the discipline goes far beyond aesthetics or technical functionality:
UX/UI Design is not just about making something look pretty or work well. It is about understanding what someone truly needs, where they are struggling, and designing a solution that genuinely improves their experience.
This human-centered vision is exactly what companies like IBM look for in their design professionals. Knowing how to use Figma or create wireframes is not enough — you need empathy, analytical thinking, and a drive to solve problems that impact real people’s lives. Madison has carried this mindset since long before she ever stepped into a college classroom, and it certainly worked in her favor during the selection process.
What It Means to Work in UX Design at IBM
IBM is not just any company when it comes to UX Design and User Experience. The company has one of the most well-established design practices in the tech industry, with a proprietary framework called IBM Design Thinking, which is used by teams around the world to develop people-centered solutions. Joining IBM as a UX intern means getting exposure to methodologies that many smaller companies are still trying to implement. It is the kind of experience that accelerates the learning curve in a way that no classroom can fully replicate, no matter how good the program is.
Madison will be working on the DevOps team, an area that brings together software development and infrastructure operations, with a focus on delivering products faster and more efficiently. Bringing a UX Design perspective to this context is extremely valuable, because the tools and dashboards used by technical teams also need to be intuitive, well-organized, and easy to use. The role of anyone handling User Experience in this environment is to make sure the professionals who rely on these tools every day can work with less friction, fewer errors, and greater productivity — and that directly impacts the bottom line.
Beyond the technical learning, an internship at a company like IBM offers something that goes well beyond design skills: it offers perspective. Madison will be working alongside experienced professionals from different departments, participating in meetings that shape the future of products used by thousands of people, and understanding how design decisions are made within a complex corporate structure. This kind of experience transforms the way a professional thinks and acts, and it tends to be the differentiator that separates those who only know UX in theory from those who truly know how to apply the concepts in challenging contexts. 💡
Next Steps: Silicon Valley as the Goal
The IBM internship is just one step in a bigger plan. Madison’s long-term goal is to land a UX Design position at companies like Google or Apple — places where her work can reach millions of people around the world.
This kind of ambition does not come out of nowhere. It is built from concrete experiences that gradually build confidence and the repertoire needed to aim higher and higher. Going through a rigorous selection process at IBM, working on a DevOps team with real challenges, and collaborating with top-tier professionals are exactly the ingredients that pave the road to Silicon Valley.
And Jacksonville University continues to invest in that trajectory. Professor Katie Webber highlighted one of the institution’s key differentiators:
One of the unique aspects of being a student at Jacksonville University is that, as a small university, professors can offer independent studies for motivated students. This provides an opportunity for students to customize their coursework and explore areas of interest in greater depth.
Next semester, Madison will be doing an independent study with Professor Webber, focused on User Experience and Interface Design. The plan for this course includes developing a data dashboard and a new product, taking them from concept to full completion. This type of individualized project, guided by an experienced professional, is the kind of opportunity that perfectly complements the corporate experience of her IBM internship.
What Design Students Can Learn from This Story
Madison Freeman’s journey offers practical lessons that any UX Design student or anyone in related fields can apply while still in school.
Start Building Your Portfolio Early
The first lesson is the importance of building a solid portfolio without waiting for the perfect project or the ideal moment. Every assignment completed in class, every challenge proposed by a professor, every personal experiment with a prototyping tool can become a well-documented case study that demonstrates design thinking, creative process, and the ability to solve real problems. Recruiters at companies like IBM are not looking for perfection — they are looking for potential and structured thinking.
Take Your Digital Presence Seriously
The second lesson is all about your digital presence. LinkedIn stopped being just an online resume a long time ago. It is now a platform where professionals share insights, showcase projects, comment on trends, and build connections that can open doors in completely unexpected ways. Madison used this tool strategically, and the result was visibility at just the right moment. For anyone studying User Experience and looking to break into the industry, keeping an updated profile, posting about ongoing projects, and engaging with the design community can be a much more effective path than sending hundreds of resumes to generic job listings.
Value Your Professors and Mentors
The third lesson, and perhaps the most underestimated one, is the value of having great professors and knowing how to make the most of them. Professor Katie Webber did not just teach content — she mentored, encouraged, and helped create the context for Madison to see opportunities where others might have seen just another assignment. Staying connected with professors who have real industry experience, participating in mentorships, asking questions beyond what is in the syllabus, and building a genuine relationship with the people teaching you can dramatically accelerate your growth as a UX Design professional. Sometimes, the opportunity you are looking for is closer than you think — and someone around you can help you see it. 🎓
Start Early and Keep Your Curiosity Alive
The fourth lesson comes straight from Madison’s childhood. She did not wait for college to start exploring technology. Teaching herself HTML and JavaScript in middle school shows that active curiosity is one of the most powerful qualities a future UX professional can cultivate. Regardless of age or career stage — experimenting, building things, and learning by doing will always be more valuable than waiting for the perfect scenario to get started.
Why This Story Matters for the UX Design Landscape
At a time when the tech job market is increasingly competitive and companies expect professionals with practical skills from day one, stories like Madison Freeman’s serve as an important reminder. The path to great opportunities in UX Design does not depend solely on where you study or who you know. Above all, it depends on how you prepare, how you present your work to the world, and how you take advantage of the resources within your reach.
The combination of a hands-on education at Jacksonville University, the guidance of a committed professor like Katie Webber, a strategic digital presence on LinkedIn, and a genuine passion for creating experiences that help people is what brought Madison to IBM. And with her eyes set on Silicon Valley, everything suggests this is just the beginning of a career worth following.
Madison’s story is proof that an internship at one of the biggest tech companies in the world does not require an extraordinary path — it requires ordinary dedication, done consistently, in the right place, and with the right people by your side.
