Managing Time and Growth as Both an Intern and a Student

Following a full-time summer internship with Skillsoft, I had a few notable adjustments to make after returning to school and rejoining the team. Balancing full-time coursework with my internship at Skillsoft has posed its challenges, but the experience has provided me with key lessons and takeaways that have contributed significantly to my learning and development.

Here are some of the key takeaways I’ve learned thus far:

1. Fostering personal growth through continuous learning is pivotal. In many ways, my internship and classes complement each other; I often find myself applying classroom learnings to day-to-day tasks as an intern or using experiences from my time at Skillsoft as a real-world example of a concept learned in the classroom.
2. This experience provides an excellent opportunity to challenge and enhance multitasking and time management skills. Effective time management is one of the most critical aspects of balancing an internship while being a full-time student. One key to this is maintaining a clear understanding of your priorities on an hourly, daily, or weekly basis. Structuring your time effectively can help set an attainable vision for your work.
3. Balancing both an internship and classes successfully requires steady communication with your manager and team. It’s vital to ensure they know your bandwidth and capabilities in completing tasks as they arise. Setting expectations for yourself, as well as understanding what your team or manager expects of you, maximizes productivity and efficiency. This approach allows you to get work done within a timeframe that suits you, while also remaining productive for your team.

A successful internship should not only allow you to contribute to a team but also offer comprehensive learning. Skillsoft fully recognizes this and provides its interns with plenty of tools to enhance learning during their internships. This includes a wide range of Percipio courses that can enhance your expertise in your own discipline and enable you to expand skills and interests that go beyond your role. These courses can complement your college education by building on lessons and concepts taught in the classroom.

Despite potential challenges, undertaking an internship as a full-time student can be a rewarding experience that could pay dividends in the future.

And — Skillsoft is the perfect place for interns to gain this experience. They take pride in fostering their employees’ growth through numerous learning tools and a collaborative environment that encourages open, constructive communication.

I am truly thankful for this opportunity and can’t wait to see where this takes me in the future.