Creating A Positive Experience for Interns!
Intern Season is upon us! I don’t know about your office, but my office is teaming with interns and it’s quite fun having eager college students around. I can’t help but think back to my own Summer Internship. The summer after my junior year of college I had the opportunity to intern at Boeing. My summer internship was the most valuable experience of my undergraduate career! My team at Boeing pushed me out of my comfort zone, and I am a much better professional for it.
This summer I have the very exciting opportunity to mentor interns. Having had such a powerful intern experience myself, I am trying to do my best to make sure my intern mentee has the most beneficial summer possible. Based on my own intern experience my three key strategies for achieving this are below. Do you have interns for the summer? What are your thoughts on how to make sure that they have a positive experience?
1. Provide Honest Feedback
Internships are unique opportunities for students to taste the “working world” before they become working professionals so that they can begin with their best foot forward. By providing honest feedback we have the opportunity help our interns better themselves both technically and professionally and become the very best version of themselves.
2. Structure Time
The summer ALWAYS flies by. It is very easy to skip a week here and skip a week there and end up missing a significant portion of the summer with your interns. My suggestion is to keep your eye on the calendar, to realize that each week represents roughly 10% of an internship, and to remember it is important to make sure that each week counts.
3. Throw Them In
The best thing my host manager did for me when I was an intern was to “throw me into the deep end” by assigning me a project that stretched my skills. I would suggest giving your interns a project that allows them to stretch and grow.
Thoughts?
Last but not least--a MAJOR shout-out to Melissa Garrison, my fellow Boeing Intern who mentored and guided me.