Your internship will be one of your most important experiences as a student. It is such a different environment than university, and it will help you immensely in your professional and daily life. However, an internship is not always easy. You will encounter difficulties and problems. This can be related to tasks, colleagues or just anything. Here are five things I learned during my internship.
- Everything you do is a learning experience, not only your tasks
By doing your tasks, you will learn a lot already. However, this is only a small part of the internship. By doing your tasks, you will also learn a lot about organization and planning in a different way than you learn in university, you will learn new software, you will learn communication skills, you will be set out of your comfort zone, you will be put in difficult situations, and the list can continue. It is important to have this mindset and not go in with, “oh, I just have to do my tasks, and then I am done for the day” but see the whole internship as a learning experience, not only your tasks. Then, doing the internship is less a burden and more something you can look forward to.
- Try to be proactive
To make the most of your internship, try to be proactive. I interned in a small organization, and my proactiveness was heavily appreciated. There was a lot to do, and everyone was always busy. Thus, deciding things for yourself or asking, “hey can I help with something” goes a long way to show that you care for the company and want to succeed in your internship.
- Have a balance between your work and private life
Although this is dependent on the type of culture you will work in. Generally, you should try to find a balance between your work and private life. I was in a fortunate position where I could always leave on time and never work overtime. Therefore I also did not need to work at home on my tasks. By having this, I could separate my internship from everything else going on in my life. And this made for a much nicer internship experience.
- Always ask, never assume
This not only means asking questions for tasks. But this has also to do with discussing the logistics of the internship. Do not ever think: “they will just say no”, but always ask about it. For me, this was helpful when deciding how many days in the week I would intern. First, I thought they would never accept four days a week instead of five (because of the size of the company, I assumed that every employee was needed every day), but then when I asked, it was okay, and that helped me with combining my internship and all my universities tasks.
- You are still an intern
If there is one thing I want you to remember, it is this: you are still an intern. Things will go wrong, you will be blamed, and you will get critical feedback, but remember that you are still an intern. You do this for the first time, thus don’t assume that you will understand everything. Your company knows this but maybe won’t always act like it. You just need to be in this mindset of I will do my best, but they should not expect me to do everything right first try.
When you have these tips in your mind, you will be set for a great internship experience.
Good luck with your internship!
