Peer Career Consultant Blogs

Internships are learning opportunities and ways for you to learn what you’re interested in and what you’re not interested in for your future career. Think of it like a trial and error experiment but for your career. You gain real-world experience, build your professional network, and learn and build new skills in a specific field. Internships can shape your future, so how do you ensure that you’re making the most of your opportunity?

Here are my tips to get the most out of your internship experience and set yourself up for success: 

• Set goals at the beginning of your internship.
  • Before your start date or during the first week of your internship, take time to reflect on what you want to achieve during your internship. Share these goals with your manager or supervisor early on, and ask how you can achieve your goals.
  • Try to list at least 3 short-term and 3 long-term goals, and add more goals throughout your internship. These goals will help you stay motivated and you can look back on your goals to make sure you are achieving them. 

• Always ask questions.
  • It’s okay to not know everything; no one expects you to. Ask as many questions as you need to and keep a curious mindset when taking on a new task or project.
  • Ask for clarification if you don’t understand something and try your best to ask questions as soon as possible.

• Be prepared for meetings, contribute ideas, and speak up.
  • The best advice I received from my mentor is: “You don’t have to be the smartest person in the room, but you can always be the most prepared.”
  • Always have notes and questions written down before going into a meeting. By speaking up and contributing ideas, you will become more visible to others and will show that you are engaged and want to contribute to the team.
  • If you are working remotely, always have your camera on during meetings to show that you are engaged and paying attention.

• Be open to feedback and have an open mindset.
  • Don’t wait for performance reviews to ask for feedback. By being proactive, you can learn ways to improve your performance and ways to stand out from other employees. Regularly check in with your manager or supervisor to understand what you’re doing well and what you can improve on. Constructive feedback isn’t a personal attack on you as a person, but a way for you to learn and refine your skills. By knowing what you need to improve on, you’ll be able to grow and demonstrate your adaptability by applying the feedback quickly.
  • Always think about how you can add more value to your team and how you can incorporate your skills into the team. Suggesting improvements and finding resources will show your team that you are reliable and can help you stand out. 

• Take initiative on tasks both in and outside of your scope of work.
  • Your internship is an opportunity to expand your knowledge and skill set in a professional environment. Seek out tasks that are outside of your comfort zone and take on new challenges and projects with an open mindset. Volunteer to help others, take on additional projects if you have the bandwidth, and show your willingness to learn and grow to your team and/or supervisor.
  • In your downtime, you can also study or read about certain topics or do online courses to learn new skills related to your job.
  • If you are interested in another field or want to learn more about another field, let your manager or supervisor know and ask them if there are any projects related to that field that you can work on.

• Network with people in and out of your department.
  • Get to know your co-workers, other interns, and full-time employees at company events and build relationships. Networking can open doors for future job opportunities at the company, or other companies that you are interested in. Also, you might be able to find a potential mentor by networking.
  • By getting to know other interns, you’ll be able to learn more about their experiences and the projects they have been working on. This also helps you build your networking skills and you can leverage these connections in the future.
  • Take the initiative to schedule career conversations or coffee chats with people whose roles or career paths interest you. Also, connect with them on LinkedIn and check their LinkedIn profiles to learn more about their career paths and interests before chatting with them. Have questions prepared to easily navigate the conversation, and always send a thank you email afterward.
  • Stay in touch with the people you networked with and don’t be afraid to reach out to them if you have questions or need advice. 

• You always have the opportunity to job craft. If you don’t like the work you are doing in your internship or another aspect of your internship, you can do task crafting, relation crafting, and/or cognitive crafting.
  • Task crafting is modifying your job to align more with your personal skills, interests, and goals. By task crafting, you are taking steps and actions to redesign your work and responsibilities. This can include taking on additional tasks that better align with your goals.
  • Relational crafting is changing how you interact with other employees, specifically how much you interact with others at work. If you want to interact more with others, you could attend more company events, intern-specific events, join employee groups that you are interested in, etc. You can also host bonding events or team lunches to get to know your co-workers more.
  • Cognitive crafting is changing your perceptions of your job and helps you understand the meaning of your work. Think about how your work relates to your goals and passions and try to understand how your work makes a difference at your company. Internships can get stressful and you may be assigned a task that you’re not interested in, but try to alter your mindset and understand the meaningfulness of your work. Cognitive crafting will help you become more confident in your work and think more positively about your internship. 

• Take initiative for your career.
  • By the end of your internship, be proactive about discussing future opportunities, whether in your same field or a different field. If you are interested in staying at the company, express your interest to your supervisor. Don’t wait for your supervisor to bring it up.
  • Always advocate for yourself because no one else will. Ask for possible opportunities to work part-time during the school year, full-time after graduation, or in a different field, and potential next steps for you. 

• Reflect on your experience.
  • Throughout the internship, you should write down all of the tasks you performed, the skills you learned, and any accomplishments. This will help you update your resume easier and give you key points to discuss your experience at future interviews. At the end of your internship, take time to reflect on the experience to gain clarity on what you want to pursue in the future after graduation. 

• Here are some questions to consider:
  • What did you learn about your field and do you see yourself pursuing a career in that field?
  • What did you enjoy most about your internship? 
  • What did you enjoy the least about your internship?
  • How can the internship guide your future career decisions?
  • Do you want to explore a new field or is this the right one for you? 

If approached with the right mindset, your internship can be transformative. Set goals, take initiative, put yourself outside of your comfort zone, and actively learn to get the most out of your internship and build the first steps to your professional career. Since most internships are 8-12 weeks, take advantage of the opportunity to grow, learn, and forge new connections that will benefit you in the future. You’ll only be an intern once before becoming a full-time employee, so enjoy it while it lasts and be a sponge that absorbs new information every day. 

Good luck! :)