7 Things I Learned Being an Intern
1. You won’t get along with everyone
I worked with a lot of different personalities and most of my conversations were either over the phone or over email. I learned rather quickly that everyone had different email etiquette and phone etiquette. I am use to emailing in a way that nothing can be misconstrued so when I would receive certain emails my mind would automatically think someone was mad at me or that I had done something wrong and I then had to take a step back and re-read the message and realize it wasn’t what I first thought. But with that some people did not like the way that I sent emails or that I communicated because it was very different from one another. And while I wanted to plant my feet in the mud and say this is who I am and how I communicate that wasn’t the right thing to do and I had to remember that it wasn’t personal but personality of professional. I then knew to transform the way I would talk to certain people to allow them to know that I was trying my hardest.
2. The age gap is real
Orca had not taken on an intern in a long time. When they began to transition to all online employees they stopped using the office thus, didn’t feel the need for interns. I had thought that I would talk to people that were at least somewhat close to my age but boy was I wrong. Almost everyone in the company was close to twice my age if not older. I learned a lot about how to communicate electronically with all my co-workers as they were not the texting kind so many emails were sent throughout my experience. Phone calls were also made multiple times a week, where I am more use to texting and some emailing, phone calls were the way that they preferred to do business. With the age gap was a social media gap as well and the learning curve there was hard. They have integrated some social media but have not found how truly important it is in this day and age.
3. Not everyone is tech savvy
Being a millennial I have had the opportunity to watch technology change and also had it in my hands for most of my life. I am always excited to try and work with the newest gadgets that are out and try to have the newest ones whenever I have the opportunity. When it came to downloading some of the software that everyone was using it was hard, they all had Dells that were pretty old. So some of the software my updated computer wouldn’t work with and then wouldn’t work with what they were doing. Many times the tech person for the company also struggled to do things that I could do within a few minutes. They are also very old school in that the tech person did all the design work as he was the only one that knew how to work certain programs. This is somewhere I would have loved to have had the opportunity to show off some of my skills but never got the chance to because “communication” is not synonymous with technology in the minds of older generations.
4. Flexibility is key
Being willing to do whatever is thrown at you is key. Most of my internship I did the same things on a daily basis, but when I would get a call that they needed me to do something else I always was up for the challenge and do the best I could with it. The different random projects I would get thrown at me were the ones when I really got to show off my skills and put my own twist on it. I was willing to work hours that were conducive to different time zones, sometimes that meant waking up on east coast time when I was on the west coast and then having work done on pacific time.
5. Don’t be afraid to speak up
During the beginning of my internship I was doing a lot of random work. There wasn’t a lot of organization to it and for a while I wasn’t enjoying what I was doing and wasn’t really learning anything. It took a lot of courage but I spoke to my manager and let her know that I wasn’t happy in the spot they had me and she immediately changed what I was doing and told me over and over again thank you for speaking up so that we could put you somewhere where I was useful as well as learning as much as I possibly can. I was so scared that I was going to rock the boat if I said anything and it ended up being the best thing I could have done for my internship. Of course do it with tact and make sure to not complain all the time but, if you aren’t happy then talk to you intern manager, they are there to help you learn and want to see you succeed.
6. I can bring agriculture into a non-agriculture company
My first project with orca was to try and find agriculture companies that they could work with and research what kind of PR was popular among agriculture companies. I began to search for young companies that had not had any exposure yet and fund so many wonderful companies. Some of my co-workers were shocked at just how many companies were out there and the different products they carried or the different business sectors they were in. Unfortunately, the account manager left the company but, I was able to help secure a few companies that are with them now and bring agriculture to Orca.
7. Sometime you have to do the work no one else wants to do
An important part of being an intern is understanding that not everything you do is going to be fun or what you want to do. What helped me the most when doing things that weren’t that exciting to me is remembering that you’re helping someone and you are proving to others that you are capable of doing any work they throw at you. If you are willing to do the grunt work the tasks you will be given will get better and better until you get to be working on things you really enjoy.