One Ford... Many Lessons Learned

As my internship at Ford Motor Company comes to a close and the time I have left in Southeast Michigan (for the meantime) quickly runs out, I'm reflecting on my experience overall, the things I enjoyed and all the lessons I learned over these past 12 weeks. I find it only suitable to share what I learned through here.

Posing questions is essential to progress

Coming into this internship, I assumed that I would ask some questions to be able to complete certain projects. However, I sorely underestimated the amount of questions I would need to pose. Turns out that most of the projects you work on requires the help of others (what a surprise!). And with a variety of people working on one project, comes misunderstandings and a need to clarify.

You can try to get by, by guessing what other people are thinking or assuming what you need to do. But, chance is that you'll probably get it wrong either way. Working on several projects throughout the past weeks, I strayed away from asking questions near the beginning for fear of looking like I did not understand. But, truth is that you'll look even more foolish when you start a project with the wring understanding and have to go back restart. Make sure you understand what people are asking of you, it'll pay off in the end.

If you can't explain what you did, then you don't really understand it

Another key part of understanding what people are asking you to do, is also to be able to explain it to someone else.

Being able to complete a project does not necessarily mean that you understand it in-depth. I can recall one meeting where I was updating my Supervisor on projects I was working on and I was making pretty good progress. But, when she began top ask me questions about insights we could pull from the projects, I realized I wasn't able to explain that portion of the project. And if I can't do that, then what really was the point of working on a project? Lesson is: always make sure that you can explain what you're doing to someone else, otherwise you don't really understand it.

Asking for help is not taboo

Something that I really had to deal with and get to a point where I was OK, was asking for help. Coming into an internship in a Fortune 10 company, I assumed that asking for help would hinder my credibility and what people thought of me as an intern and potential full-time employee. And there are certain cases where you should be able to take initiative without assistance.

But, asking for help along the way or clarifying a confusing topic is not a bad thing to do. If anything, quite the opposite. When you ask for help, it shows initiative in you trying to complete a task (and completing it correctly). At the end of the day, it can only help you when you ask questions - you gain more knowledge, insight and the tools to finish the rest of a task or project on your own.

Consider your experience as part of your pay

One of the great things about working, to be quite honest, is the pay. Getting paid for your work validates that you are doing a good job and your effort is recognized. But, one more takeaway you should get from an internship is the professional experience. Gaining key skills, understanding a business process and mastering a new software tool are all examples of things you should tackle during a new job and take to the next one.

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If you're interested in the internship program or a career at Ford Motor Company, feel free to reach out and I can share my advice/experience. They have great rotational programs for recent graduates that also facilitate graduate school studies!

A big thank you to my supervisor, colleagues and fellow interns at Ford Motor Company for the learning experience they allowed me to have and for all the joys I had in the past weeks!