Making The Most Of Your Intership
Inspired By A Tale Of Two Internships
Years back I wrote an article detailing experiences I had with early interships. These included both those I had and those I managed. It was a solid article that you can get to via the link in the subtitle. I won’t repeat myself. I will also never say that any internship is a bad thing. But there are good internships and great ones, this is about the latter.
In that article, I recounted my experience managing a less than spectacular internship program at Advanta. But I didn’t share the story of a different year, one that truly was great. Although, I was not the main character in this tale.
During this particular year, I had an intern that was engaged in one of those great internships that I lauded so highly. This intern had responsibilities that likely felt overwhelming but was ultimately working their way to a full time role at the company and a long career since in analytics. But many other interns were brought in for the much weaker kind… they basically sat in a giant conference room together and played solitaire.
Late in the summer, one of those other interns approached me. “I hear your team has a lot on its plate. Can I help?” Totally unsolicited. It probably broke some rules. Not being one to care about rules that lead to solitaire playing, I replied “sure.”
Within hours, this young man had the sort of internship that my other intern had. He was a natural analyst and thanks to a little creative management on my side — his ‘real’ boss was delighted when she found out what he was doing. I supported her organization — so I had aligned him against some of her stalled projects. It was win-win.
When the summer ended, his intership came to a close. He approached me again and asked me to extend it. Intern salaries were light on the budget, so I was able to make that happen. For the next six weeks, he continued to work and grow. But something unexpected came to my attention…
It seems the original internship had come with a housing stipend. How that got lost in the shuffle still baffles me, but it had. Without the stipend, our intrepid intern had opted to simply sleep in his car in the parking lot. He had been spotted early one morning by one of my other employees.
So what does one do when they discover something like this? I mean that is a tremendous amount of sacrifice. I did the only thing that made any sense to me — I got him a full time job. It took almost four more weeks, but I made it happen. It would have been stupid not to.
Years later — this would also make a compelling case on his recommendation to Wharton. I was proud to write it and thrilled when he was accepted. More so when he graduated with his MBA.
In the end, this was his story. My only role would have been to screw it up. I shared it here to inspire others. Getting an intership is a great win, but making that internship great is also in your power. It may require some sacrifice, but it is well worth the effort.
Thanks for reading.
