I am a mass communications major with a minor in marketing. This past summer I had an internship with a pharmaceutical company. I was an editorial intern in the marketing department. I went into the internship not really sure what I would learn from it. It was not exactly want I wanted to do, but I knew that any experience in the corporate world would be a good experience. I thought I would gain some skills that would make me more marketable on my resume, but I actually learned a few surprising things throughout my summer internship:
1. You can learn a lot by just observing. There were a lot of meetings that I went to where I had to sit back and observe. Although this may seem boring, it was actually very educational. I learned a lot about how people in an office interact, and the proper way to conduct professional meetings.
2. My mentor gave me some tips about the future. One tip was to picture your perfect day. She told me that a good way to find out what a good job would be for you is to picture how a perfect day would be. When will you wake up, how will you get to work, what will you pass on the way to the office? Will your destination even be in an office?
3. I am not a morning person but before my internship I was also not a coffee person. However, I learned quickly that if you want to stay focused at a computer from 9-5 coffee becomes your new best friend.
4. You can totally fake the whole adult thing. This was my first internship so half the time I had not idea what I was doing. I quickly learned that if you smile, nod, and look busy, people think that you are competent and treat you like just another adult working in the office.
5. Just because you learned one thing in school does not mean that is what you have to do. A lot of professionals that I met at my internship didn’t plan on going into their current occupation, but it did not matter where they went to school or what was on their degree; as long as you apply yourself, you can do anything with your college degree.