Editor’s Note: The virtues of internships are well recognized by employers, universities and millennials alike. Bentley’s PreparedU research also probed the impact of parents on their children’s decision to pursue business, the importance of millennials’ knowing what to expect when they enter the workforce, and whether workplace relationships between millennials and other generations need improvement. Kevin Ma’s report on his summer internship offers further insight.

To tell you the truth, I had no idea what Molex did until I looked up the company’s Wikipedia page shortly after seeing a job posting online. When I was younger, my family used to drive past the campus on Ogden Avenue here in Lisle, Ill., all the time, but that never enticed me to want to work here. After starting, however, it didn’t take long for me to realize just how important Molex is in the electronics industry. That realization began to change my opinion of what working for a business could be.

As first- and second-year college students, young adults are always looking for that big-name, consumer-focused company to intern for as a way of boosting their adolescent egos. While an internship at a big-name company may give our résumés a little something extra, all we’re really doing with that title is “one-upping” our classmates.

During the fall semester of my junior year at Bentley University, I signed up for a B2B (business-to-business) marketing class. On the very first day of class, the professor got up, greeted us and said that more than 60 percent of us would one day end up working in B2B marketing. While most of us believed her, we didn’t yet understand the importance of B2B in the business world. Those lessons about “pipeline generation” and “value-added activities” may not have seemed applicable to us then, but became more and more relevant once I started working at Molex.

My parents always encouraged me to pursue whatever career or job captured my interests. And, like anybody else’s parents, they always had high hopes for my future. In my adolescent eyes, I always envisioned myself working at a large consumer corporation (and maybe I still will) that would provide me with unlimited bragging firepower. But once I started interning at Molex, my parents were more than proud with what I had accomplished thus far, in part because of their background and views on the value of work, regardless of name recognition.

My parents emigrated from China in the mid-1980s, when they were in their late 20s and their main goal was to just be employed. Years later, when they had my brother and me, their chief reason for working shifted to making money to support the family. While working at a more recognized company would have been nice, it was never something that was viewed as a priority. In all honesty, I have faced my fair share of uninterested employers from consumer brand-name businesses and organizations, as I am sure we all have. However, when the time came for me to make my decision on how I would be spending my summer, I ultimately chose Molex.

Molex impressed me after my first day. The number of different people moving around, the many product names and pictures being used and the multiple business processes going on around me felt surreal — all of which was just a glimpse of what it takes to make a multi-billion dollar company run smoothly. Despite the fact that Molex has more than 37,000 employees, there are thousands of other people and their jobs and businesses that rely on the products we design and/or produce. At Molex, we have a saying that “You are never more than 10 feet away from a Molex product.” Shortly after I heard that for the first time I started finding Molex products among my personal possessions, like the HSAutoLink ™ Media Module installed in my car, the HDMI port in my flat-screen TV, the cable connector in my smart phone, and even the cable assemblies in the airplanes I fly back to school in after every break. In the grand scheme of things, Molex makes just as big of a difference in people’s lives as the next company, regardless of their brand awareness among consumers.

The company’s positive contribution to the electronics industry isn’t the only thing that makes working here a pleasure. When it comes to employee morale, Molex has done an excellent job balancing the daily workload with enjoyable company activities. From free bags and volleyball tournaments, to company-funded marathon and 10K runs, to Relay for Life bake sales, to sustainability days hosted by the Molex Environmental Team, all employees can find something that fits their interests. And it’s always nice to see the surprised look on a supplier’s face once they hear about the various activities we have going on at lunch. In all seriousness, it’s not every day you get to see a member of HR swatting the jump shot of a VP who is set to retire at the end of the year or hear a manger and a board member smack-talking about each other’s golf game.

What I thought might be a quiet and laidback internship this summer became an eye-opening experience now set to guide the rest of my professional career. As students entering the finale of their teen years, we tend to fail and see that a job is a job, that B2B is just as important as B2C (business-to-consumer) and that paying your bills and generating weekly or monthly income surpasses any friendly banter among peers. We are too often blinded by another’s perception of success. As college students nearing graduation, we start to feel the pressure of finding a job and realize that there are aspects of the business world beyond just a big name, and then we start to see the value a business can be to us, and vice versa.

An earlier version of this essay originally appeared on Molex’s blog site, Connector.com. Kevin Ma, Bentley University Class of 2015, is a Marketing major from Naperville, Ill., with a dual Liberal Studies major in Earth, Environment and Global Sustainability. His internship at Molex showed him the importance of B2B companies and the impact they have on consumer products.