Starting my internship at Ogilvy Social.Lab in September 2020, I would have never thought that for the upcoming four months working from home would have been my new reality. As my first real internship, I was very excited and happy to start. For the first few weeks, I was able to go to the office, meet new people and experience my very first office job. However, as the pandemic began to hit again, in October I was forced to work from home, until the end of my internship, which, despite everything, turned out to be amazing.
How can you survive an internship completely done from home? And how can an internship-from-home be a meaningful experience?
– You may ask at this point –
Luckily for you, I am here to tell you how and give you some tips and tricks on how to survive the working from home life.
At first, I had to admit I was a bit sceptic myself. Not being able to see my colleagues in person and have the “coffee-break chat” at the office felt a bit sad. Having all these zoom meetings with people I have never met, was definitely not something I was looking forward to when I applied for this internship. Moreover, it was also difficult to learn all the new information about the job and complete all the tasks without being able to see anybody in person and ask for quick help popping on someone’s desk.
However, I was determined to complete my internship no matter what, to learn everything I could possibly learn and to do a great job. But how to keep the motivation up? And make to most out of this internship-from-home?
First, I tried to be always enthusiastic and not be afraid to ask questions, even though this meant having extra zoom meetings! That’s right, overall this is still an internship and you are supposed to learn, so don’t be shy. I completed every task – even the most boring ones – showing enthusiasm and willingness to gain new knowledge. And when I did not understand something, I asked for a short clarification meeting. In this way, you can show proactivity and keep your boss happy.
The second advice I can give you, that helped me during this hard period, is to take daily walks and short breaks during the day. Working from home can be overwhelming and you don’t get to have a 10 minutes break at the office gossiping with your work bestie anymore. Luckily, I live near the park and I managed to take short walks during the launch break or towards the end of the day. It really helped me not to go crazy being all day in my living room.
Finally, I recommend you to have daily and weekly check-ins with your colleagues. In the end, you still want to meet people and maybe make some new work friends – even if the only way to do it is online! Having daily and weekly more informal zoom meetings with your work team is definitely worth it and will help you bond with people. You can just catch-up on life and talk about how the internship is going. And, when the pandemic is over, you can always transform these catch-up meetings into live sessions, over a good cup of coffee.
These tricks are what personally helped me going through a working-from-home internship and still made me enjoy my time at Ogilvy Social.Lab. I had a great experience, managed to learn a lot and bond with my colleagues. They organized a zoom good-bye party for me and we are planning to have dinner together as soon as the pandemic is over!
So if you are struggling with an internship-from-home, don’t worry: it can still turn out to be amazing!