#COVID-19internship

Greetings!

We live in a world that has been centered around change, and those that react positively historically speaking tend to be rewarded better than the latter. When it comes to COVID-19, it is no different.

Hi if we haven’t met yet, my name is Charles King I am an accounting major at Oral Roberts University and an Enterprise Accounting Intern at The Williams Companies. Like most of you on or around March 13, 2020 my life changed completely. It was on this day – the second day albeit of spring break my university announced that it would be switching to a distanced learning environment. Soon every facet of my life as I knew it would change, in order to #flattenthecurve.

Initially I saw no difference between the real world and a virtual one, that is until I met Zoom and Microsoft Teams. Little did I know these two applications would become my best friend for the foreseeable future. As classes continued, I was able to find some sort of normalcy and was able to end my spring semester strong.

However, this brought a new set of problems entering the summer and COVID-19 still not yet eradicated I began to wonder what will my internship look like this summer? Will I even have an internship? How will I network and build connections? Will I be able to connect with other interns?

My internship journey is not like anyone else’s, and I am truly blessed to say that I have an internship. However, this internship class is uncharted territory for both the employer and the intern, luckily Williams allowed the intern program to continue amidst the pandemic.

Entering my third week of the internship program at Williams, I can truly see the dedication and determination of everyone at the company to ensure that this internship is a success. I have to come to the realization that the rest of the concerns of networking and proving the value I must add to the company is now all in the hands of me, the Intern.

This is what I am currently doing to maximize every second of the internship, I encourage my fellow #COVID-19interns to do the same (feel free to comment or message me with any other tips).

•  Initial post on LinkedIn: The first day at my workspace, I posted a photo of myself and my work setup. I made sure to tag my company in the post as well as mention a few kind words about how professional and amazing my first day was. This post alone brought me tremendous value, that post in 10 days grossed over 91,000 views, 1,000+ reactions, and hundreds of comments. This led to me getting connected with people in different departments, and even getting asked to lunch.
•  Connecting with other interns at my company: All the interns at the Tulsa office have connected virtually via Group Me and Microsoft Teams. There we have planned events to network after hours while adhering to CDC guidelines.  Although all of the interns can’t be at the Tulsa office, during the weeks that we are scheduled to be in the office (Williams operates on a rotational schedule to mitigate risk) and HR assigns a meeting, they also have reserved large conference rooms configured with Microsoft teams so that we can all meet in person and stay physically distanced.
•  Connecting with Executives and upper management: Fortunately, I was assigned an amazing mentor. On day one of my internship she asked me, “What do you want out of this” I am extremely grateful that she took what I said and over delivered. During this time, I have met amazing executives and upper management professionals and have had the opportunity to ask them whatever I felt was necessary for my success. Understanding everyone may not have this opportunity, I think that it would be beneficial to continue to connect with others on LinkedIn and to also see if your company has an “Org Chart” or an organizational chart that depicts who reports to who. I would then simply reach out to the person I would want to connect with – with Microsoft Teams its extremely easy, as it is attached to their Outlook Calendar and they can propose a new time if needed.

That’s what I have been doing while trying to stay as safe as possible, and it seems to have been working wonders for my professional career so far. Let me know if there is anything, I can do to make a larger impact and to meet more people while I am at Williams this summer, I would love to hear your recommendations!

Thank You!

A COVID-19 Intern

Charles King

Charles King | Accounting Major| Oral Roberts University