Companies offer internships for many different reasons. Some do it because they have political reasons while others may see it as a golden opportunity to spot and train future staff. Internships can mean different things to different students too. Some students see it as an extra item on their resume that will help them land in the right job. Others see it as an opportunity to learn. Yet some others may see it as a point to start to connect them to an area they eventually want to work in.
Regardless of your motivations, if you are offered an internship you would want to maximize your learning and performance there, as doing so will help you build your future career in one way or another.
Stories about internships that you hear in the campus may sound interesting. But for the many students who have been there, internship experience to them is anything but interesting. You may have heard that many internship duties are boring, irrelevant to what one wants to learn, and sometimes even down right exploitative. The list can go on forever. But like anything else unpleasant in life, these negative encounters can be overcome if you are prepared to deal with them.
Doing ‘irrelevant’ work
- Many students feel not being valued because they are assigned dull tasks such as running errands, making coffee, or photocopying. If you do not have a chance to do the work you want to do, do your best in whatever that is offered to you. This is a good opportunity to learn about work that you may not like and also an opportunity for you to show your resilience. So, when you are asked to do work that appears to be irrelevant to the internship, you:
- take up work assigned to you with a positive attitude and make the best of the situation.
- learn to like what you do and try to be thoughtful about it.
- try to go beyond a work request—if you are asked to make coffee, clean cups too.
- Note: DO NOT refuse work as long as they are reasonable. DO NOT complain to other staff about how boring or irrelevant your assignment is.
Having nothing to do
- This is quite common in internship situations as company priories are always on work that is critical to running their business instead of 0n internship duties. If you do not have work to do, you can:
- always ask to see if someone else you work with need an extra hand.
- spend time to improve the work routines that are assigned to you.
- help with shared facilities such as refilling photocopy paper or tidying up the coffee table.
- Note: DO NOT use spare time as your own leisure time to network on Facebook, read a newspaper, or even study for your own examination. Doing these things may cause others to form negative impressions of you.
Overworking
- As internship qualities can vary greatly, it is possible that one runs into some exploitative internship situations. You may be asked to do more than you can or your coworkers may take advantage of you by asking you to do work that they should be doing. Under these circumstances, you can:
- talk to your career advisor and if appropriate, talk to the manager or supervisor.
- try to be generous and accommodating unless things go too far.
- Note: DO NOT appear to be calculating and learn to deal with the situation in a tactful manner.
Not getting along
- A recent survey has shown that student interns care about their job content as much as they care about the manager or supervisor with whom they work closely. In general, a good and caring manager will positively affect how an intern perceives the meaningfulness of his work. However, not getting along with a manager or supervisor tends to pose problems to the internship. If this is the case, obviously, one of the priorities of learning in an internship is to:
- learn to work together with someone who thinks and acts very different from you.
- learn to draw a line between your job duties and the person you have to deal with.
- do your job well regardless of people factors.
- gently state your position even if you do not agree with someone.
- Note: DO NOT argue to prove your point.
Getting work of your choice
As work content in an internship is something that is valued most by interns, and if this is what you have, you are the few of the lucky ones. But do not just stay at this level. Although you will be certainly learning by doing the work you like, be aware that other things that happen around you are also golden opportunities to learn. Remember that these days, work is always multi-dimensional, involving many different kinds of competencies, knowledge, and skills. Use this opportunity to learn about what is beyond your job assignments.
Working with good role models
If you find good and helpful colleagues or managers in an internship, you are lucky too. Research in internship calls this the ‘make or break’ factor. Having good mentors will more or less guarantee a positive internship experience even you may not be doing all the things you want to do. Despite this, you should be careful how you manage these positive relationships. You can learn how not to be too reliant or dependent on a relationship at work. You can also learn about how to sustain a professional work relationship by not crossing personal boundaries by becoming too personally involved.
There are a lot of things that can be learnt in a company environment regardless of whether you like your internship and the people you work. In general, you will learn a lot by paying attention to people and company culture. You may try to keep a journal or diary of what you have observed.
People knowledge
Pay attention to people, including yourself. Are there people you like better than other people in the company? Why do you like them? Can you make a list of their positive traits? In what ways you are similar to or different from them?
Pay attention to the power hierarchy and the network. Find out who are the influential people. Find out why they are influential. Is it because of their official position or is it the way they treat people or the way they use their knowledge? Do you want to be like them? Why or why not?
Company knowledge
Pay attention to the values of the company you work for. Ask questions like: Will you be reprimanded when you are late or does the company care more about your performance in your job area? Does the company value innovation or value conservatism more? Does the company have a long-term vision? How can you see it? There are no right or wrong in this sort of thing, and this type of knowledge is not always written in hand books. However, they are very useful in helping you to prepare to yourself to adapt and succeed in similar corporate environments in the future.
