Hello, my name is: Intern

Source:  Google

Congrats!  You got an internship, a chance to get a glimpse of the “real” world.  The first day was scary, but now you’re settled into your cubicle and daily routine of working on Excel and PowerPoint, and hopefully not just getting coffee.  But do you wonder what other interns do all day?  

We were curious too.  I had been comparing internship experiences with friends from school, laughing about trying to find appropriate work clothes, and then feeling ridiculous in them.  We gawked at how, just one year ago, we were graduating from high school, where we had to ask to go to the bathroom and would get our phones taken away for checking the time, and now, no one even checks to see if we’re doing our work.  By sharing our daily experiences and struggles, we gained real insight about each other’s internships. 

Source: Google
Look familiar?

As a true planner, I had also been planning out my summer next year, this year.  It was so time consuming going from newspaper to newspaper, company to company, trying to find information about summer internship programs.  After all of my searching, I knew a lot about the application process, but didn’t really know what the interns at each company did.  Would I learn a lot about the industry from this company or would I just get coffee and crunch numbers?  As college students, we only have three summers to make professional connections and gain the most experience possible before being sent into the real world, hopefully with a diploma AND a job offer in hand.  

We wanted to expand our knowledge of different internships, so when next summer rolls around, we have an internship where we know what to expect and what we’ll actually be doing all day.  It would make the internship process a lot more intentional, allowing interns to apply for positions because they know that they want to do what that internship entails.  Having committed interns would also benefit the companies employing the interns, because now they would have a group of prepared, eager, summer employees. 

Source: Google

So we started “Inside the Internship” with the goal of providing an inside look at various internships.  No business jargon, just honest experiences.  You’ll find interviews with interns from all different fields, outfit advice, office coffee and book reviews, and posts about life walking around with “Hello, my name is:  Intern” stuck on your blazer. 

Feel free to share your own internship experiences by emailing:  Jennifer.insidetheinternship@gmail.com

You might just get posted!