Ruby in the Sky

Yes, I did recently see The Intern starring Anne Hathaway and Robert de Niro.

No, this article is not about that.

A few weeks back I did my high school internship, an obligatory part of my education, in which I was supposed to intern 3 days at a place I might be interested in profession-wise. My internship was actually 4 days long: I worked at a paper for 3 days and another day at a magazine, because I wanted to experience different kinds of press.

Both internships were a lot of fun and a nice experience, but they didn’t help me that much further in my search for the perfect course for me to take. So today, I wanted to give you some tips on how to get the most out of your internship (especially short ones like mine!).

#1: prepare goals

Going into my internship, I didn’t exactly have a clue what I wanted to get out of it. Not knowing this makes actually learning something and getting further in your quest to self a whole lot more difficult, because you can’t search if you don’t know what you’re looking for, can you? Determine for yourself what it is you want to find out about this job and how you can do this. That way you can clearly indicate what you would like to be doing to your supervisor while you’re there, and your short time will be a whole lot more effective!

#2: prepare questions

This goes along the same lines as number 1: think about what you want to know about the job or general environment. Think of people who can answer those questions and go around to see if they have time to talk to you about them. E.g.: I asked all the people I worked with at the paper what they studied at uni. The answer was hardly ever ‘Journalism’, by the way!

#3: plan your day

If you don’t know what you’re going to be doing, have a back-up plan. Nothing is worse that sitting around, bored out of your mind because your supervisor’s idea of shadowing is very different from your own or because you simply weren’t assertive enough. Think of something, preferably job-related you can do while you’re there if you do not have an assignment and see if someone in the office can have a look at it with you to give you some pointers when you’re done!

#4: prepare for the job

This is the easiest tip, but please, come prepared. A first impression is so important, not to mention it will be much harder to do tip 3 without a notebook and a pencil. Remind yourself that if you do a good job now, you might have a better chance at getting a longer internship at the same company at a later point in your studies because they know you’re a hard worker that comes in with everything they need.

That was all I can help you with, based on my own experience (which is clearly limited!). I hope it helped you somehow!

Have you ever interned anywhere? How did you like it?

Love,

Ruby