How to ace your internship ?
Are you worried about your first internship ? Was your recent internship not so fruitful ? In this story I will take you through what are the key metrics that your employer looks for and what potential mistakes you must avoid.
Recently, I finished my summer internship at Dell Technologies and a successful one which was converted to full time offer. Let’s dive in to the learnings.
Be prepared for the meetings
Never take any meeting for granted. Always have something where you can note down key takeaways from the meeting. Plan for the meetings in advance and look for potential issues which you can resolve/suggest a suitable solution.
Be technically strong
By being technically strong I mean you must know the basics of what you are working on and be ready to learn advance stuff on the same, not necessarily learn the latest fad in that domain.
TURN UP ON TIME
Whether it’s a meeting or a casual discussion, you got to respect everyone’s schedule.
Not responding to emails and meeting schedules
You ought to respond to mails on time in a professional manner. If any meeting is hooked up in your work calendar make sure you respond to them whether you are attending it or not. Adding the reason is recommended.
Be open to constructive criticism
It usually happens with freshers including myself. We come out of college with certifications, achievements in different domains. Sometimes it blocks our mind with arrogance. To put it straight — Listen calmly what your teammates and seniors are saying during a review or any discussion related to work. Reassess your work and be open to changes.
Socialize with people from different backgrounds
Not just your teammates but if you get a chance, you must interact with people working on different sections. It improves awareness about what your employer’s/firm’s business is all about in a deeper sense.
BE PRESENTATION READY
Imagine all your work is done and you are excited that your team’s work will be appreciated by your clients and boss but it crashes for some reason or the other.
How to avoid embarrassment?
- Do a mock drill of your final presentation.
- Be thorough about every aspect of your project.
- Know your audience. You must know which kind of audience you are presenting. Some people are only bothered about the benefits and functions while other prefer to dive deep into it’s core components and working. Plan your time given to slides accordingly.
- Create a backup of your project and presentation. For instance mine was a software project. So, I made a screen recording of it’s working features.
Concepts > tools
“Focus on the process instead of the outcome”.
Freshers often make this mistake of not learning the basics of whatever they are working on and jump directly to the fun part. Been there done that too. If you are interested in data science then you have to put in efforts in learning the mathematics and essential prerequisites instead of starting with titanic dataset with linear regression. Don’t get attached to the tools you use. If you are working on web dev project understand how to design a database and it’s fields in order to reduce data redundancy, reduce the number of hits on the database, how the web browser works instead of which framework you are using. Here’s a lucid article on how browser works.
First Business, then techtools
Always approach your project in a manner that you put business requirements above what you are good at. If your business needs you work on abc tools for better outcome then learn that instead of getting stuck with xyz tools.
Always discuss your project’s blueprint
We often think that “ Umm I am going to complete the project of 2 months within 2 weeks, surprise my manager and he will appreciate”. I assure you that your manager and teammates will hate redundant work. It’s better to thoroughly plan out, discuss and be on the same page for smooth completion of project.
Be honest at workplace
Nobody expects fresher’s to produce professionally crafted projects. You must be honest to everyone about loopholes or bottlenecks in your project if they have not found that out yet, instead of silently pushing defected work into production leading to bigger damages.
To wrap it up
Do the basics well, be on time, socialize, be open minded, contribute to different projects if possible but prioritize yours’s first.
Give some claps if it’s helpful. Thanks for keeping up till here.
