As July is winding down, so are many internships at companies across the country. Whether you're working on Wall Street or at the corner accounting firm, you have no doubt had a hectic schedule trying to fit in work, friends, and fun over the course of the summer. For some college students, their internships are their first "real", 40-hour job where they are responsible for more than just putting the right amount of whipped cream on a Frappuccino. They have real responsibilities and opportunities to grow both professionally and personally. For others, their experience might have been a bit more stereotypical with twice-daily coffee runs for the managers and setting up display stands for company events.
Thus far, and with one week to go, my experience has been more of the latter - each day I've been tasked with making endless lists of names and running messages from manager to manager in different buildings (and in this age of technology - I know). I wish I could say that my internship experience this summer clarified my future, showed me what I want out of my career, solved world hunger, etc., etc., the truth is that I really just learned that my legs can handle 9 flights of stairs before my muscles start to scream in agony and that I really can stare at a computer doing absolutely nothing for longer than 6 hours.
In seriousness, I did learn two very valuable things from this internship that I really believe will take me far in the future. First, with all of the down time that I had during my internship, I had to figure a way to not go crazy, so I began to reach out and cold call people within the company to learn more about their jobs and experiences. By doing this I realized that networking isn't a scary thing that only the super-driven nerds do, but something that provided me with a lot of sage advice and insight into business and into potential careers that I might be interested in pursuing, and that is a huge confidence booster to know that I am capable of accessing that information and successfully interacting with professionals.
Second, I learned about an industry that I do not want to be a part of when I graduate. The corporate environment of the company that I interned with was not somewhere I see myself in the future, and the day-to-day operations of current employees quite frankly seemed extremely boring. And I think that realizing where you do not fit is just as beneficial (if not more) as finding an environment where you do, because now I can identify characteristics of particular work environments and companies that aren't compatible with my work style or interests and eliminate them as possibilities before wasting time investigating them.
So to the intern that hasn't had the most clarifying, groundbreaking experience experience this summer, it's okay. It's even good. Every experience, positive or negative or neutral, is an opportunity to grow and to learn more about yourself. So whether you've learned how to use a picture as a background in PowerPoint or you've learned how to hack government computers, your time has not been wasted. Take what you've learned about yourself during your experience and apply it to your life so that you can grow, because as cheesy as it sounds, the sky really is the limit and the future is as bright as you can make it.
