What to Expect from Internships (1/3 — UX Design)
MS-HCI students shared their 2022 summer internship experiences
Internships can be both exciting and nerve-racking — especially if it’s your first time working full-time or if you are new to the role!
Earlier this semester, our second-year MS-HCI students reflected on their experiences interning as UX Designers, Researchers, PMs, and Engineers. We’d love to share our experiences with you, and hopefully, they can offer you some insights as you prepare for future internships.
In Part 1 of the series, we will be hearing from our UX/Product Design interns. While everyone has a unique project and experience, we identified a few recurring themes when it comes to challenges and key takeaways.
In this article we will share:
- 🧗 Challenges we faced
- 🧑💻 Learnings as designers
- 🧑🔬 Learnings as interns
- ☀️ Favorite memories from internships
🧗Challenges we faced
Time management, multitasking
We found that it can be challenging to juggle multiple projects and different intern social events during the limited duration of 10–13 weeks.
I led a couple of projects during my internship and initially did not understand how to structure my time efficiently to do justice to both projects in the limited duration of my internship… This was easily fixed by reaching out to more experienced co-workers who provided insight on how they manage time on their projects. — Srijan
I found it helpful to write out a rough project timeline, go over the plan with my mentor before I start the project, and check in weekly to see if there should be any adjustments. — Vanessa
Working without a rubric
Being handed real projects with real users for which you are fully responsible can be daunting. The lack of templates also adds to the anxious uncertainties when you are first starting out. The internship experience prompted us to take leads and seek out resources that would help with our decision-making — whether it be setting up meetings with cross-functional partners to gather inputs for our designs, or reaching out to co-workers to learn about how they approach certain tasks. In the end, it was about taking ownership and utilizing the best design method to work efficiently.
In school, we’re always given a rubric with clear expectations and requirements, but I learned that it doesn’t always work that way in the corporate world. It really depends on the PM you are working with, and it’s up to you to identify requirements and build a workflow that helps you meet the project goals. — Irene
I was a bit lost after receiving my first project. I had a few ideas in mind after spending some time understanding the problem space, but I wasn’t sure if there was a ‘right’ way to start a project. I was also afraid of looking dumb for not knowing how to start. Though it might vary in different companies, I soon learnt that we have full ownership of how we want to approach a problem space, and that “there is no one size fit all process”. That said, I still found it to be super helpful to meet with other designers and learn about their workflow! — Vanessa
New environment
In addition to tackling our design projects, adapting to professional settings and remote work were also new challenges for us.
Since this was my first internship experience, I struggled a lot with understanding corporate speak and understanding what was expected of me after stand-ups and pod meetings. — Irene
Something I realized during my internship is that I am not a fan of remote work. It was definitely challenging separating the lines of work and life. It was very easy to just keep working past the normal 9–5 hours. It was also felt quite lonely. — Elisa
🧑💻 Learnings as designers
Communication and Collaboration
We learned that effective communication is essential for successful team collaboration. It helps make sure everyone is on the same page and aligned on the next steps. Make sure you understand the goal of each meeting when they start. If you are leading, be concise about the meeting objectives. Don’t be afraid to ask for clarification.
A side effect of working remotely is that I was on my own for a lot of the time, so I had to make sure I was communicating effectively with my manager/team, staying on task, and reaching out wherever next steps need to be taken or when I needed help. — Elisa
I learned from my mentor that I can always parrot back what I heard to ensure that everyone’s on the same page. For example, this might look like asking: “So what I’m hearing is XYZ, and I should start working on XYZ?” This gives me a chance to summarize what I understood, and let people correct me if I’m wrong. It also helps to identify my next actionable task or goal. — Irene
Seeking feedbacks
Share work early and often. You can walk through your work with your co-workers and design manager when you feel stuck. Keep in mind that the quality of the feedback you get depends largely on how well you articulate what type of input you are looking for.
It really helped having multiple eyes on my design to help improve it to make sure they were consistent with the design system and other products with similar or the same features . — Aayahna
There were times when my work received appreciation — but I didn’t recognize the areas that could improve more in. I resolved this by actively seeking feedback and letting my design manager know that the critical constructive feedback helps me identify the parts I need to work more on. Feedback is an essential part of learning and growing in my opinion, and internship is a great time to build these skills. — Srijan
Presentation skills
Presenting our work comes in various scenarios. You might be sharing work in progress during design critique sessions (design crits) for feedback, or proposing your final designs for approval. Either way, it’s good practice to structure your presentation based on your goals for the meeting. Design crits are great opportunities to practice presenting your work and gathering feedback. Try to sit in as many presentations even if you don’t have anything to share yet — you’ll get to see how others go about sharing their work!
I have always heard that, as a designer, it is important to know how to present your work well, but I didn’t truly realise how to do that, until I received the right guidance. My manager was a constant source of support on presentation and communication skills which I believe helped tremendously. — Mudra
Always be prepared to explain the rationale behind your design choices with solid evidence be that user feedback or testing data. — Irene
I also learned how to make sure my work and designs were properly documented and handed off to be developed by the engineers. — Elisa
Being adaptable to changes
We ran into a few hiccups during the usability testing which required me to be adaptable and open & ready to change my designs quickly to continue with user testing. — Aayahna
There was a time I had to redo my design based on the team’s decision. The product I was working on was launching soon. Due to a limited timeline and engineering resources, I need to design an informational home page for the product lunch. — Xiaoyun
🧑🔬 Learnings as interns
Communicate your goals
Effective communication is not only valuable for smooth teamwork, but also for your career growth. Take some time to reflect on what your goals are for the internship. Share your goals with your mentor and manager so they know how to best support you, and point you to the right resources.
I faced minor challenges with setting up expectations about what I wanted to get out of my projects. In my experience, transparent and clear communication with your managers and mentors go a long way, and helps them understand your perspective better. — Srijan
Utilize 1:1s
Internships offer many great opportunities to meet and learn from amazing people, whether they are designers on other teams or your cross-functional partners. If there is anyone you want to get to know, don’t hesitate to send them messages to schedule 1:1s. You can learn about their background, the projects they are working on, their workflow… People are busy with their work and it’s ok if meetings don’t work out, but we 10/10 recommend you give it a try.
Networking with your team and asking them about their backgrounds and tips for your personal success is HUGE. In my internship I was in a role I was very unfamiliar with, but I took the time to meet everyone in one-on-one Teams chats or in-person coffee chats. I built my network early and whenever I had complications I always had someone I could chat with. — Kyle
Internship is what you make of it. Want to network? Actively reach out to people during your time there. Setup 1:1 with cross-functional partners, grab lunches with co-workers across different teams. Want to improve presentation skills? Sit in for many presentations. Talk to people about their general practices when presenting. The perks of being an intern is that everyone would be willing to help you out, provide their suggestions and recommendations. I used that to my advantage and built my network. — Srijan
Growth > mistakes
You might feel insecure and anxious sometimes during your internship, and that’s absolutely ok. It most likely means that you care about the quality of your work! However, try to be mindful and not let the anxiety overtake your capacity to make progress. If you ever find yourself paralyzed by the fear of making mistakes, it’s helpful to remind yourself that as an intern, your top priority is to learn. There will be times when meetings don’t go smoothly and your deliverables don’t live up to your expectation. What’s most important is that you approach these challenges with a growth mindset and take notes on what you can improve in.
Imposter syndrome is real, normal and does not go away. It happens to everyone. From fellow interns to people in more senior roles, everyone I spoke to admitted to having experienced it in some form. There is no remedy for this, but I found that focussing on producing good work and having time aside for ‘career chats’ with my manager helped me gain an accurate understanding of my work style. — Mudra
Don’t be too hard on yourself. Enjoy the experience!
☀️ Favorite memories from internships
The entire product experience (PX) team does this thing called Signature Cafe every week or so where 1–4 people on the team would create a themed virtual room to talk about different things as a break from work. Some of us interns made a record store themed virtual room and talked about music with a bunch of other PX team members. It was a lot of fun because we got the biggest turnout for the event and got to meet so many awesome PX people outside of our immediate work team. — Aayahna
There are a few that stand out: the final presentation day when I presented my work to my team, my manager and I getting lost in the office on my first day when he was showing me around, being a part of a very very intense two-day Design Sprint with my team & organizing a ‘UXD 101’ event for fellow interns. — Mudra
My team threw together a going away party for me on my last day. Due to Covid most people worked remotely, so this was not only the first time I had seen most of my coworkers, but the first time they had ever seen each other in person. We had ice cream and drinks. — Kyle
Even though my team was located in Sunnyvale, California. I was fortunate to have a sister design and research team in New York. Some of my favorite memories are the off-sites with these teams. I’ve also enjoyed sitting for ‘design crits’ where multiple teams across LinkedIn present their work for feedback and suggestions. These sessions were a lot of fun and a good way of getting to know people outside of your product team. Another great memory is the intern week hosted by LinkedIn where I visited the Bay Area offices and met other interns, my team and leadership at the company. — Srijan
Grabbing food and drinks with uxr team/other interns, getting to know cool people, seeing cool work during crits and design weekly, slowly feeling familiar with the office space, *the relief after I finished all the presentations*… I’m also glad that I joined our team’s offsite on my last day of internship. It was a very wholesome wrap. — Vanessa
All the interns presented their work near the end of the summer at a virtual “Intern Fair”. It was really cool to show off what I had been working on during the summer, as well as talk with other interns about their projects. Lots of really cool stuff happening. — Elisa
Stay tuned
Next up in the internship experience series, we will be sharing reflections from the students who took the UX Researcher role.
For now, as application season is approaching, we will leave you all with a quote from the upcoming article on job applications:
I want to say, “Hey, you’ll find an internship! Don’t stress out too much!” But the reality of it is, you will be stressed, and you have a lot of competition. I didn’t secure my internship until late June — much later than everyone else. I felt terrible and I really believed I was the first MS-HCI student at GT to have no internship, but things ended up working out and I love the company and team I’m working with. I can’t say your outcome will be like mine, but I can say that it’s not worth beating yourself up over, and you should be kind to yourself during that process. Start preparing early (around the end of Fall semester), and don’t forget to take care of yourself. (This means remembering to sleep, eat, and drink water!) — Irene
Thanks to Akash Talyan for co-authoring, yugvir parhar for editing, and all of the students who took the time to share their reflections :)
Aayahna Herbert, https://www.aayahnaherbert.com/
Mudra Nagda, https://www.mudranagda.com/
Kyle Leinart, https://www.kylelein.art/
Irene Ong, https://www.ireneong.com/
Srijan Jhanwar, https://www.srijan.work
Elisa Zhang, https://www.elisagzhang.com/
Xiaoyun (Annie) Chen, https://www.xiaoyunchen.com/
Vanessa Lin, https://www.vanesssalin.com/🫶
