So…let’s talk internships. Something that is so crucial to the college experience, but also one of the most terrifying things to navigate as an undergraduate. While the research and application processes are equal parts scary and stressful, they are necessary experiences that give you an idea of what you may want to do with your life, or at least, what you don’t want to do. As the end of the semester looms upon us and application season for summer internships is on the rise, I decided I would share a little about the types of internships I’ve had, categorize them, and share my advice on how to get the most out of each one.
As someone who has done their fair share of internships, I’ve seen it all. Although not as exaggerated as the Hollywood portrayal of “Interns”, it is true that you are positioned at the bottom of the professional food chain. Zero experience, potentially undependable (school does come first, after all), and completely green to the industry you’re entering. For this reason, it sometimes feels like you’re useless in the office, prone to messing things up or annoying your supervisors with all your questions which seem so obvious after receiving the answer. However, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing! It’s important to remember that you aren’t an employee (especially because so many internships these days are unpaid), but instead a student to the company’s curriculum. You’re spending your academic year, semester, or summer getting a snapshot of what that company does, and trying your hand at some of the jobs they have to offer. For this reason, it’s completely okay to mess things up or ask for help, because what kind of student knows all the answers? And if you’re lucky, your superiors won’t just be your supervisors, but your teachers as well.
However, sometimes internships don’t end up this way, but instead can feel like a boring waste of time. The company or organization you admired for years taking a chance on you seemed like a great triumph initially, but when you finally get a chance to see how things are on the inside, you feel a web of disappointment drape over you. Whether your job description doesn’t include things that interest you, or your superiors aren’t engaging, or you feel left out on the things that you really want to be learning about, it can feel like your professional development is stunted before it’s even really started.
This is what we’ll call The Snooze Internship.
The Snooze is a tough place to be in. As a restless person, being bored with no sort of relief is one of the absolute worst feelings I can think of. Your coworkers and supervisors can be the absolute nicest people, the company itself can have a captivating deliverable that looks good on a resume, but when it comes down to it, it’s a total Snoozefest. You’re trapped behind a desk, having easy mindless tasks being dropped in front of you, and watching through the frosted glass of your boss’s office door as the real fun gets to happen.
It is easy to take this personally, to wonder if you are receiving the “lame” tasks because nobody thinks you’re capable of doing anything else. I’m going to be very honest with you and say, it’s likely this is true. It doesn’t come from a place of maliciousness on behalf of your supervisor, but simply from taking things for face value. You haven’t proved yourself to the company yet, and upon first meeting, no matter how nice you seem, you’re still at the bottom of the professional food chain. Oftentimes the reason a company hires an intern is that they have tasks to be done that none of the employees have the time (or the desire) to do. If you need a little humbling, I’ll tell you this—you are not too good to do these jobs. And if you give off the impression that you think you are, well, good luck.
Here’s the good news—doing these “boring” jobs, and doing them well, can’t leave any room for complaints on behalf of your superiors. And, having a good attitude about doing whatever jobs they give you, regardless of how fun they are, will speak volumes, to the point that they may give you the chance to do something more enticing later on. If you’re worried about whether “The Snooze” is a waste of your time, take it as a chance to pay your dues, and make an impression, so that you’ll eventually get your chance at doing the things that make excellent additions to the highlight reel on a cover letter.
“The Snooze Internship” was my first, which is typical considering those are the ones that usually nab the less experienced applicants. I felt so frustrated throughout the first half of my time with them, bored out of my mind, aggressively organizing pens by shade and dusting shelves until the smell of Lysol made me want to puke. I felt hopeless, trapped in a summer of boredom and wastefulness. However, something changed the minute I did the thing that is so simple yet so difficult at the same time: I asked to do something else.
Luckily for me, The Snooze came with a super nice and welcoming group of supervisors that I enjoyed talking to on both a professional and personal level. They made me feel welcome every time I came into the office, and eventually, on a day that I had finished all my dusting and pen-separating early, made me feel confident enough to suggest making a tweak to my job description. I overheard my boss talking about a big community event she was going to that week on behalf of the company, where there would be notable community members and public speakers. It sounded like a great experience, and a good chance to get out and talk to people for a change. I asked her if I could go along, even if just to watch, and her face lit up, before she quickly replied:
“I didn’t think you’d be interested in that sort of thing. Of course.”
Although your supervisors have a wealth of knowledge they can share with you about their field, they aren’t mind readers. If your day-to-day isn’t working, or you want to see something else, sometimes it’s as simple as saying so. While I can’t promise they’ll say yes, there’s a pretty high chance that they will. At least after the files have been reorganized.
The Nightmare.
Sometimes you aren’t fortunate enough to have superiors that are nice and welcoming, but instead have ones that can’t remind you enough how you’re lesser than them. The office energy is intense, so intense that you’re terrified of making a misstep or asking for help, which are two things you’re probably going to do a lot in an internship.
When I say that the quality of your experience is really determined by the people around you, I mean it. Regardless of how entertaining the work you’re doing is, if you have people around you who make it fun, and are excited about their job (and sharing it with you), your experience will be so much better. Something that’s important for both you and the company you’re interning with to know is that you’re there to learn. You’re trying things out, building the first semblances of a network, and looking for guidance in the professional world, which is something that, by taking an intern, a department or company should know.
In one summer internship that I had, nobody seemed to know this, and barely made it past remembering my name. The most disappointing part of it all was that I was so excited about having a chance to get involved with this organization, which I had admired for years. I preened over my application and stressed until I finally got an email notifying me that I had been selected. The night before my first day, I carefully ironed a pair of linen wide-leg pants, and packed a lunch that followed the workplace aromatic etiquette I had read in an article about navigating new jobs. By this point I’d had a few internships under my belt, and thought that I had officially “nailed” this season of my professional life. I was going to absolutely crush it.
When I arrived on the first day, I was sat down at a tiny desk in the back of the office, a stack of papers toddler-high placed in front of me. The simple command, “turn these into a spreadsheet” was mumbled to me from a nameless woman in a cotton caftan as she disappeared up a flight of stairs.
As stated previously, doing boring jobs isn’t below you, and indeed necessary in the internship stage of your life. However, the thing that made it hard to accept these responsibilities with a smile on my face was the fact that it felt like I was doing them because there was nothing else to be done, as if they had forgotten I was coming and were making up pretend jobs so that I was entertained and kept quiet. The main reason I felt this way really became apparent the minute I met my “boss”, which didn’t happen until at least a week and a half into my internship.
She barged into the office, her thick hair pulled tightly into a ponytail and platform sandals slapping against her heels with each furious step she took. I had been told about her from my coworkers, that I’d meet her eventually but she was often out of the office. I’d built an image of her that was so deeply rooted in retellings she felt like a folkloric tale. However, the sound of her yelling over the phone at a poor nameless soul absorbing the office was very real, and when she walked over to my desk, a stack of manila folders in her hand, her presence was anything but an airless story.
“Are you new girl?” She asked me, before dropping another stack of papers in front of me, which I was to transfer into yet another spreadsheet.
New girl was my name until I wasn’t new at all, and the spreadsheet-making remained constant too, except for the occasional days that I was sent to make a copy or fetch extra staples. Those grueling weeks seemed to stumble on painfully slow. The whole time I couldn’t help but feel like my boss despised me, and that it was all my fault. I was so frustrated with myself; I wondered if I had done something awful without realizing it, an incredible social faux pas that didn’t allow me to make it past new girl.
If you find yourself in The Nightmare internship, wake up. Don’t take your aloof boss personally. The truth of the matter is that they don’t owe you the act of immediately liking you without precedent. Whether or not you want to believe it, you will encounter lots of people who have aggressively tight ponytails, and an even more aggressive disposition. The important thing is to learn how to work with these kinds of people. Sometimes the key to changing their indifference towards you is putting in a little work beyond making excellent spreadsheets.
A trick that I’ve found is useful when trying to break the ice with someone new is looking for surface level markers on them that you can easily use as fodder for conversation. Whether it’s a piece of sports team merchandise they always wear, or a mug with the logo of a state park you’ve visited–these are things you can easily bring up when crossing paths by the coffee pot or copy machine. One day in particular, I noticed a pair of earrings my boss was wearing, and commented on how much I liked them. This led to her telling me about the store she bought them at, that her daughter picked them out, and once we got on the topic of her kids, we were off to the races. Just like that, we had a common ground, a way of connecting. And soon enough, she started calling me by my name.
It may seem so elementary to win your coworkers over by engaging in meaningless conversation, but it’s more important than you think. Sometimes people aren’t purely cold and calloused but need a little nudging to warm up. Engaging in shallow chatter and finding things you have in common may make working together a little more pleasant, and even if it doesn’t, how could being nice hurt anything?
The Dream.
I know I’ve spent a lot of time writing about internships that royally sucked, but that’s not to say that great internships don’t exist. In fact, one of the very first internships I ever did was by far the best I’ve had. The biggest reason I think that I had a good experience was because the company had an established internship program and a staff member who was directly in charge of coordinating it. Especially if you’re applying for your first internship, I highly recommend doing research and finding companies that have organized internship programming, or asking around on campus to find people who have had great internship experiences, and what contacts they could share with you.
It’s important to weigh out what’s more important to you; sometimes interning at your dream company, that doesn’t seem super pumped about interns, isn’t as valuable as going with the one you may know less about, but will provide you with a more fruitful experience. Even if you have the notable company name on your resume, it won’t mean anything if you can’t pull tangible experiences or skills from your time there. I will say that this company, which I initially wasn’t super excited about interning with, ended up being one of my favorite internships I’ve ever had. It’s because of the hands-on experiences they gave me, as well as the ability to articulate “because I did a and b with c company, I have acquired skills such as x and y, which will prepare me for z.” Taking part in an internship program is also valuable because you typically have an advocate on the inside that supports you throughout your experience, which will provide you with someone to go to if things aren’t going well, or if you want to change things up and don’t have the confidence to tell your direct supervisor.
If you’ve had a great internship, odds are you don’t want it to come to an end! One piece of advice I can give you about continuing to get the most out of it, continue the professional relationship, maintain contact, connect on Linkedin (maybe it’s dorky, but it’s more useful than you may think). And if too much social interaction makes you nervous, something simple and free that you can do is write them a thank you note shortly after your internship ends. Handwritten letters, which most older people consider to be foreign concepts to teens and twenty-somethings, will show initiative and will be sure to tie a pretty bow around your internship experience. Nurture those contacts as much as possible, because they will come in handy one day.