So you have an internship and you realize that getting coffee or sorting things or generally doing busy work is not as glamorous as you dreamt it to be. Hang in there!

For me, every day at the office has been pretty much the same thing for the past two weeks. It’s great experience and I have no complaints or regrets, but it’s definitely hard when you think all you’re doing is projects to make you look busy. At the end of this past week, I got sent on a mission. I had to run around downtown Manhattan and make sure an important item was delivered on time…it was some really crucial stuff. I made it in time and everything went where it needed to go. When I returned to the office red-faced and sweaty, my boss was apologizing, saying that she didn’t expect it to be like that and she was sorry I was thrown into the mayhem.

Even though this race against the clock and 4 p.m. West Side traffic, followed a morning of getting actually lost in Central Park, I was smiling. I felt like I actually did something that really mattered. They needed me to do that. I felt accomplished.

Wherever your internship is, there is always that opportunity for accomplishment. If it hasn’t come along yet, make your busy work a little more meaningful. Do something that you can later point to and say, “That is like that because of me.” Make it something your boss notices. They do notice things, believe it or not. Even if they don’t say anything about it, they see it. Acknowledgement doesn’t always come in the form of praise. Sometimes it comes in the form of being given more responsibility or introducing you to someone else at the office who can help get you to where you want to go.

So when you feel like you are giving 100 percent and are getting zero percent in return, just be patient. Your hard work is not going unnoticed, I can promise you that. One of these days, you are going to get rewarded in a way, big or small (most likely small, sorry but it is an internship), that will make all of your efforts worth it.