Always stay friendly and most important be open-minded, drama-free and easy to work with.
Internship is a supervised training process that a student undergoes in order for them to get valuable experience and exposure to technical work experience which is in line with their career. This allows one to explore and get a feel of what a real work environment would be like.
Working as an intern for any company comes with its own challenges. You are most likely to experience the following:-
1. As an Intern you will mainly do administrative tasks or run errands - it will be of importance to know you are making substantial contributions to the company no matter how little it seems to be.
2. You will be required to do extra tasks - most of the time you will find yourself swamped with extra work that isn't in your to-do list. You might feel like it does not add value to the experience that you are looking for.
The remedy to this would be for you to become proactive and ask your supervisor or colleagues if you can assist them in any of the tasks they do or identify an area of interest and request to be considered.
3. Managers forget you are new to the field - you might find yourself in a situation where you are given a task but with no guidance or clear direction because your manager assumes you know.
Be Assertive, do not be afraid to ask questions or seek help where necessary. This is the only way you will learn and grow.
4. Competition with other interns - it's not uncommon to find yourself working in an unfriendly work environment where you are not the only intern and there is lots of competition amongst yourself. This is of course brought about by the fact that you are all trying to be the best and maybe end up clinching the job. Regardless of what other interns are doing to impress their supervisors, stay true to yourself. Always stay friendly and most importantly, be open-minded, drama-free and easy to work with.
5. Having no feedback - regardless of whether you are an intern or not, getting feedback from your seniors and colleagues can help grow you as an individual. However, colleagues may be swamped with their own work and not have time to give you feedback. This should not hinder you from building relationships with your colleagues and being open to what they say as long as it's constructive feedback.
6. Time limit to learn - internships are usually for a short period. As such, it's important that you use your time to learn as much as you can and show the company that you can handle most of the tasks unsupervised. Endeavor to learn something new every day and write them down to remember what experiences you have had. This will give you the sense of completion you need to push on.
Positioning yourself as a hardworking and reliable employee makes you suitable for full-time employment. If the company is not hiring at the time your internship ends, do not be disappointed or think it's because of your work.
