It’s common to feel like COVID-19 has pressed pause on everybody’s lives, but it hasn’t. All of us are still going to class, or work, or figuring out the transition from school to the “real world.” It can be daunting to navigate real-life from your bedroom. At least for me, I have experienced intense bouts of low productivity or motivation levels, especially when it comes to any of my university work and requirements. One of my major requirements was to complete an internship, and since this is my last year of college, I needed to get it done as soon as possible. But I had no idea how to figure this out remotely, I honestly wasn’t sure if remote internships were even a thing. Still, I managed to get accepted into a program, find an internship, and 12 weeks later I’m done, and I hope I can help everybody find their dream internship during these very weird times.
My first piece of advice would be to join some type of program through your school or community that gives you additional resources to help you connect with internship sites. You can certainly find a remote internship yourself, but joining a program can give you several advantages. A lot of programs are well known amongst employers and may give you a leg up in the hiring process. They also may offer other services like mock interviews, resume revision, cover letter proofreading, and management of your applications to various worksites. I got accepted into UCDC, which is a program offered by the University of California schools that allows students to intern in Washington, DC. This program offered all the benefits I mentioned before, as well as an internship database that was only available to UCDC participants. Using the database and all the services offered by UCDC, I secured an internship with the National Immigration Forum.
You had a fantastic Zoom interview, you were offered the job, your first day is fast approaching…and you realize you have no idea what to expect. This is exactly how I felt. My preconceived notion of an internship was a young college student running around getting coffee for their boss, printing copies of memos, and sitting in the back of the boardroom observing meetings. None of these things are possible when you’re working from your computer. In my experience, a remote internship is more like an entry-level position at the company or organization you’re interning at. They can’t really give you busy work, so they have to give you real projects and assignments that a paid employee would do. For me, that meant learning how to write grant applications and reports during the first two weeks of my internship. The key to learning quickly on the job, staying on top of your deadlines, and meeting your boss’ expectations is managing up. Managing up is exactly what it sounds like: instead of your boss managing you, you manage your boss. It means learning to anticipate what your boss wants you to do before they ask you, that way they can’t hit you with an unreasonable deadline or a ridiculous amount of assignments in one day. Not only does managing up benefit your sanity, but it will also strengthen the relationship between you and your boss, establish you as a “natural” at whatever your job is, and demonstrate your ability to be engaged and productive.