Hi everybody!
My name is Kristel and in this blog post, I am inviting you to reflect on my internship with me. The internship reminded me a bit of the Hero’s Journey with it’s ups and downs, rewards and challenges. Thus, I will make use of this framework to describe the journey of my internship. Buckle up!
1. Ordinary World and the Call To Adventure
The journey started in my second academic year of CS in a shared flat in Amsterdam West. The CS part of the Bachelor’s degree was over, so I pondered over my possibilities – should I write my thesis, continue with electives or take on an internship? With studies being online anyway, what better time, I thought, to complete the internship in my home country. I started applying and soon, landed an internship, but not without…
2. Refusal Of The Call
…experiencing great uncertainty and doubting my abilities first. I had applied to some positions previously and besides HORECA jobs, I had not received any positive replies so far. However, these failures had prepared me for writing a better CV, a better motivational letter this time, which ultimately led me to receive an offer this time.
3. Meeting The Mentor
My mentor(s) were my friends. A lot of people helped me by proofreading my CV and motivational letter. The final result was definitely the most professional-looking CV I had ever composed.
4. Crossing The Threshold
I applied to the internship that had caught my attention and received an invitation to an interview with the CEO. The interview went well and I was asked to take part in another interview with a future co-worker of mine. After this interview, I had the third, and the final interview, where I received an invitation to start my internship within a month. The process altogether took about 2 months.
5. Tests, Allies, Enemies
As for enemies, I could not name any, but I certainly went through some tests during my internship. Due to the Covid-19 situation, while I did work in the office during my internship, most of my coworkers stayed home. Fortunately, the Allies, or the coworkers, tried their best to make me feel welcome and help me get used to the routines at work.
6. Approach To The Inmost Cave
The tasks at my workplace were, at times, difficult. I was given a lot of responsibility. From the very first day, I started to help out with real-world projects. During my internship, as I gained more experience, I soon started working on the data collection projects on my own. Two months into my internship, I was handed a project that required extensive data collection for a large international company. During the primary stages of the project, I conducted a video call with the manager from the company’s side. That call went somewhat underwater, and my emails were soon left without responses. One of the reasons was, as I was told, that my position as an intern left the other side feeling undervalued and that they would have preferred to be in contact with a “real” project manager instead.
7. Ordeal
I was flabbergasted. Doubts soon took hold of me. Maybe some other intern would have been taken more seriously instead of me? What if I should have handed this project to someone else in the first place?
It took some inner courage to remind myself that not every failure in the workplace is to be taken seriously. The host organization sympathized with me and quoted the specific culture of the other firm as the reason for “losing” the project.
8. Resurrection
“Reward”, “The Road Back” and “Resurrection” all in one – this experience with messing up with an important project made me understand that some mistakes are unavoidable and I emerged from the situation with added confidence.
9. Return With The Elixir
In the end, my internship was extended by almost a month and after that period ended, I received a job offer at the same company. While a challenging experience, I went through a huge learning curve thanks to the support of my co-workers and the host company. I would suggest this type of internship to anybody who is not afraid to work hard during the internship and take on responsibility from day 1.
Until the next journey!