At some point in our collegiate career, we have to face the daunting idea of taking on an internship. Some of us obtain several internships before we even get our degree. The cool thing about internships is that for the most part, you can make them what you want! Sure there are internship positions out there where your main responsibility is to get Starbucks for everyone in the morning and to pick up Chipotle for them at noon.
I guarantee, though, that if you tell your supervisor what your goals for the position are and what skills you want to gain from the experience, they will delegate whatever tasks are applicable to your goals and objectives to you. Why wouldn't they? It's free work for them!
If you've been an intern at some point in your life, you will find that some of the struggles of "The Office" staff to be extremely applicable and humorous. Here are a few examples:
1. There are several great internships or co-ops out there, which offer competitive pay for their interns. However, the majority of internships are unpaid, unfortunately.
2. There comes a point in your relationship with your supervisor where you have to decide if it's appropriate to accept their friend request or not.
3. Before you really get the hang of your daily tasks, sometimes you need a little extra instruction on duties that might come much easier to your supervisor who's been logging social media metrics long before you arrived.
4. Getting a very prestigious internship changes people.
5. But, at the end of the day, you feel extremely blessed to have been given such a great opportunity that will ultimately do wonders for your resume. So you decide to give credit where credit is due.
6. If you're a full-time student with an unpaid internship, you know all to well about the struggles of having to throw another job into the mix that is your crazy schedule. But hey, you've gotta pay the bills somehow.
7. No matter where you go, or who you know prior to your internship, there's always that awkward transition from being "the new guy" to being included in on office traditions, lingo and small talk.
8. A lot of internships require students to work specific events during nights or weekends. At that point, getting home after a full work week and then a weekend of promoting at client events can be one of the best feelings ever.
9. Getting to take a break from your intern duties to join in on festive holiday parties is a great perk to being a part of the staff! After all, one can never have too many of those Lofthouse cookies.
10. Cold calls. It's a term that many interns are familiar with and most hate. Making cold calls can give you some great experience in external communication; they're just a pain for anyone who does not enjoy conversing with people they don't know.
11. At the end of most internship programs, your school will require you to be evaluated by your supervisor. Your supervisor may choose to send a paper copy of your evaluation to your school, or they may choose to evaluate you in person. This option is extremely nerve wrecking. Especially when they get to the "suggestions for improvement" part of the meeting.
12. However, the majority of companies out there will choose their interns to fill a vacant full time position within the company. Hearing that you would make a great candidate for the opening makes all of those early morning coffee runs so totally worth it!
