Thoughts on internships

Parent Cafe
1

<p>My D is taking part in internship right now and between her accounts, second-hand accounts from various sources, and my own recollections from a generation ago, I think there are some ideas to be considered by students going off on internships.</p>

<p>**Take it seriously.**Act as if you care. Actually, don’t just act as if you care…care about what you’re doing. Treating an internship as an off-campus vacation shortchanges yourself, the organization you’re working for, and another student who would have been thrilled to have your spot. If you got your position via a family or personal connection, you need to work hard to show that you deserve the slot, not treat it as a due prerogative. (I recommended a student for an I.B. internship, which she got, and I gave a fairly thorough assessment, pro and con, to my contact. She did fine…great, actually…but I would have been so ****ed if she had blown it off.)</p>

<p>**Recognize that you’re outside the college bubble.**Not all internships are created equal and in searching/applying/negotiating/accepting an internship, the student has some responsibility for developing a handle on what the qualititative experience is going to be like. There were some postive green lights just in the telephone interview that D had with the office where she ultimately interned: she was interviewed by a relatively high ranking staff member, a sign that interns were viewed with some importance. Two writing samples were required, one of which was a brief sample from a college paper but the other of which was in response to a prompt supplied by this particular office, the nature of which gave some indication that they had given some thought about the qualities that they were looking for. A prospective intern should be sizing up the organization/office as much as they are being sized up in return and it’s the student’s responisbility to be active and alert in this.</p>

<p>Working hours. A good rule of thumb is the Hollywood adage: if you’re on time you’re ten minutes late. Similarly, you don’t leave on the dot of five (or six) if everyone else is still working and a task isn’t completed unless you’re told to go ahead and leave. Your punctuality and availability is one of the easiest and most visible criteria by which an intern is going to be noticed and judged…same goes for lunch hours, breaks, etc.</p>

<p>You’re probably going to start with the grunt work. One of the neat things my D learned in ballet was that you have to do the boring stuff at the barre before you do the flashy stuff in the center. Do the grunt work well and odds are good that you’ll be trusted with more substantive work the next time or the time after that or the time after that. Attitude counts.</p>

<p>It isn’t all about you. Apparently some students are so used to getting praise and positive feedback in an academic environment that they freak out when they don’t get it in their internship. Do a good job, do it well. It will be noticed. But you won’t necessarily get much feedback for what’s considered a routine good job…the expectation in most organizations is that a “good job” is normal.</p>

<p>Use discretion. True story: my D was having lunch with three other interns in a large cafeteria serving her office but many others as well. Two of the interns were having a loud discussion about how they didn’t like their boss and had <em>no</em> idea of who was around them, who was friends with whom, etc. My D felt she needed a big “I’m not with them” sign. (Fwiw, the two interns were something of slackers and the boss was on their case about it.)</p>

<p>I’m sure there are more bullet points to consider and add. These were just a few that occured to me in the past couple of weeks.</p>

2

<p>Agreed, TD. An internship (my son had one this past summer) probably is the first opportunity for a college-age person to act in something resembling a professional position (i.e. the type of work one might become engaged in following college). The working world, as you point out, is aimed at getting work done that’s paid for (by the employer or by a client), and isn’t much considered with boosting self-esteem of the workers or of giving them pats on the back (or even feedback, though this is something that ought to be done more than it is). So the student’s attitude is important - needs to be shown if possible from the beginning,or very quickly developed.</p>

3

<p>When in doubt, overdress. Ask about the dress code. Dress up a notch on the first day (or two or three) when in doubt. Dress sensibly, though - if you are interning in a lab, do not wear a suit except to the interview and do not wear a skirt and heels.</p>

4

<p>I’ve worked with some great interns from Univ of Rochester and the thing I appreciate most about them is their ability to:</p>

<p>Take initiative and be willing to work independently. If you think you aren’t busy enough, find work to do. Suggest work to do. Add other aspects to the project. Take things a step further. Your co-workers and supervisor still have their own job to do, so understand if they can’t be with you constantly.</p>

<p>Work neatly. Put things back where they came from. Tidy up your work area before you go home. Don’t walk away from the jammed copy machine. Pitch in if your office is “self cleaning” (not-for-profits frequently have no cleaning services).</p>

5

<p>Excellent and helpful thread. Thanks to all.</p>

6

<p>Yes to all three additions. </p>

<p>D is about to shop for a second suit. Just yesterday she said something along the lines of “What I used to think was fancy I now see as kinda casual.” In D’s office, the regular staff are cut slack on some aspects of dress code that the interns aren’t…they may dress down when the boss is out of town, the interns can’t. Makes a certain kind of sense…the interns look young enough that being well dressed lends a certain needed gravitas when dealing with the public or other offices.</p>

<p>As for initiative, she was pretty good about seeing that if something was requested once, she would do the same thing the next time the same circumstances occurred, getting the response, “Oh…I was just going to ask you to do that” when she turned it in. She bugged people for more work repeatedly for about three weeks…some others just slacked off if work was light. You may guess who got the more interesting assignments as they became available.</p>

<p>Another one:</p>

<p>Do it well beats doing it fast. Most bosses are fine with a learning curve. You’ll complete many assignments faster with experience. Do it well. **</p>

7

<p>This is the advice I gave my son for his summer internship. When he returned for the fall, his bosses decided to give him a nice salary.</p>

<p>Make your boss look good. Do every task in a way that enhances your bosses’ reputation.</p>

<p>If your boss says jump, you say “How high?” One of the fastest ways to accelerate your career is to have a mentor adopt you. One of the best ways to get a mentor to adopt you is to overdeliver on every task–from coffee to research reports.</p>

<p>Better to be speedy than perfect. Push yourself to get faster and faster with assigned tasks Disagreeing somewhat with Mr Depp on this one. In the arts, speed has a ‘Wow!’ factor. Speed was a factor in my son’s other internship with a newspaper. He wrote his first article in 24 hours and then spent 48 hours re-writing it. Every time I walked by his computer, words were disappearing off the screen. I suggested he not bill them for the second and third day. When they asked him to write another article, he ignored his anxiety and submitted the article 36 hours after it was assigned. Bingo. They asked him to continue writing articles for them–one per week from abroad.</p>

<p>Ask for advice This is a tip from my father that works a charm. Ask for advice during interviews, when speechless, when gobsmacked by dazzling talent, when bored, when stumped by assignments etc. My dad told me that everyone loves to give advice–and he was right!</p>

<p>Rest assured, the cream of the crop will rise to the top. Do not get involved in petty backbiting or petty anything. It’s not a good look.</p>

<p>Develop BEAUTIFUL table manners</p>

<p>Learn to entertain others at social events. That is your job as a guest</p>

8

<p>On speed it would depend on the task. Some tasks they want both but can’t afford errors. When D is putting together a presentation, she is aware of the desired delivery time. She will skip or shorten lunch as necessary, stay late as necessary…but not work so fast that the result looks anything but good. Which I guess can be summed up as, in many environments Presentation counts.</p>

<p>The bit about avoiding petty backbiting, etc., I file under “Discretion.” D learned her lesson young…she was about 12 and I overheard her discussing something at the ballet studio that had been told me in confidence. (It was impossible and pointless to keep all my phone calls in a cone of silence.) I singed her ears pretty well on that occasion but never had cause to worry again. She understood that just because you know something doesn’t mean you have to let other people know you know.</p>

9

<p>Once upon a time, a Junior high principal gave this speech: “When they are 13, you can’t tell how successful girls will be in high school. In junior high, many girls compensate for lack of talent by working long hours to get perfect grades. Those girls run out of hours in high school and their grades drop.” </p>

<p>Respectfully, as a long time employer, I disagree Dad. Especially for girls, efficiency over perfection–something which is second nature to boys who have ALWAYS done the minimum–is very very important. I’d rather see a few mistakes NOW than a perfect drawing or model at the end of the week. Smart employees learn not to make the same mistakes twice. Being the one of the fastest draughtsmen served me very very well in my early working career in New York City and in my early days as a new business owner some twenty years ago.</p>

<p>As Phillip Johnson used to say: “If you can’t do it in eight hours, you can’t do it.”</p>

10

<p>Cheers, I’ll go as far as saying it’s a context sensitive question, no further. Speed may trump in your experience, I can tell you that it does not trump in all. And in the case of a particular project my D was recently working on, not at all. The first time it took her three hours. The second time a little under one hour. But it was a usable presentation in the first case, not something that had to be edited, tweaked, adjusted, redone by someone else at a higher pay rate…and it was still before deadline.</p>

11

<p>Here’s another comment in support of Cheers perspective. Years ago, I worked for Big Blue. One of the systems engineers I worked with made an observation which at the time, I found irritating. He felt that female Reps and S.E.s had a tendency to focus on the minutiae, and weren’t as able to look at the “Big Picture” issues. I disagreed with him, but over time I could see what he meant.</p>

12

<p>Good post. I had a great internship this past summer. It was interesting work, a great opportunity, etc.</p>

<p>I was one of six interns and four of us had parents that worked at the organization or had close associations with the organization. I was trying very hard to do everything right, and I think (hope) the director is happy with my work.</p>

<p>She kept finding some of the others sleeping, sneaking out, adding time to their timesheets, etc. It presented a pretty difficult problem because of the parental ties, but I’m glad I came out with a good rec and stuff.</p>

13

<p>Weighing in on speed: as an engineer, I needed to get things done well - if my samples weren’t good enough, they had to be re-done and R&D continued. Despite this, I excelled and was pushed forward in my career because I was frighteningly efficient. I got what my boss thought was two days of work and had it done by lunch (2 pm). Most of this was figuring out when “down time” is and getting certain things running, so reactions were going when I would catch up on other stuff. Trust me, my boss was very happy that I was charging his projects for six hours and not sixteen. </p>

<p>Now, in gov’t, where your D isn’t being paid, let alone charging limited-financed projects, it can be very valuable to do things right.</p>

14

<p>Minutiae vs. Big Picture is a separate issue. I’m not talking about things like making the cover of your high school report look pretty for goodness’ sake.</p>

15

<p>I’ve long agreed that at least half of what you learn at college is outside the classrooms. Same with internships:</p>

<p>“Mom, I have to hang my clothes up because dry cleaning is so expensive.”</p>

16

<p>“Weighing in on speed: as an engineer, I needed to get things done well - if my samples weren’t good enough, they had to be re-done and R&D continued.”</p>

<p>I think one of the big lessons of life is learning which things need to be done well and which things just need to be done adequately.</p>

17

<p>TheDad, I am not challenging your advice to your daughter, your data point, as it were. I understand your point but re-emphasized mine because I believe overworking projects to get to perfection is a serious career buster for women. It is a major problem, in my opinion, and one of the reasons women are not able to maintain their dominance once they get out of the graded and untimed academic scenario. In pursuing time-consuming perfection, women may create their own glass ceilings–across the career choice board.</p>

<p>Consider this possiblity: your male notion of perfection and your ability to get to your notion of perfection is likely to be very different than the general female perspective. In my experience, American society encourages girls to put in long hours in school to get to unrealistic levels of perfection while they let boys slide by with far lower standards. Out in the workforce, girls run out of time, especially as they try to add children to a career equation. </p>

<p>Also, when advising girls, one must consider the advice being given to the competition. For example, we encourage our former slacker boy, (whose notion of perfect is probably in a distant galaxy compared to your daughter’s), to focus on efficiency in the early days of his career (he’s a rising junior with a full-time paid internship on Capital Hill and a part-time paid freelance newspaper job). </p>

<p>That focus, along with his natural talents, appears to be working a charm.</p>

18

<p>I hate to see this over analyzed, so having seen it from both sides, I’d like to make a simplifying suggestion. </p>

<p>From the company’s point of view, the internship is a tryout for the job. When we have the choice we hire people who seem capable of doing the work and who we like and think we’d like to work with.</p>

<p>All of us here have great kids. What they need to most of all is take the internship seriously AND be themselves. The best thing they can do is pay attention and work as hard as they did to made them successful up to this point. Plus learn how to have a little fun doing it.</p>

<p>That’s probably what got them the internship in the first place. Stick with what works. ;)</p>

19

<p>Here’s a word of advice for all of our young men …</p>

<p>SHAVE!</p>

<p>Not everyone wants to see day-old stubble. This isn’t Miami Vice. :(</p>

20

<p>I just have a question for everyone who may have S/D doing an internship right now (during the school year). Would you recommend this route? Has it been very hard for your S/D to balance out school, interning, and other school activities?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>