It’s the unofficial summer of virtual internships — we’re celebrating the successes and sharing the struggles that come with it. Be on the lookout for a blog post about virtual internships every Friday!
Author Bio: Joy Burton is the marketing and public relations intern at Artisan Electronics, Inc. She is a recent journalism/public relations graduate from Indiana University Bloomington in the Class of 2020. Joy will be a first-year Master’s student at Syracuse University this fall.
I was plagued with uncertainty applying for a summer internship in the midst of a pandemic. As a public relations and advertising student, I’m accustomed to the internship hiring process taking place between March and April. This year by the middle of March, many internships were off the table. When I found Artisan Electronics, the number of interviews I’d already participated in reached the double digits, and many programs had cancelled their programs before a candidate was chosen. But through the process of interviewing, I learned about what essential qualities I was looking for in an employer— and I found those qualities in the staff at Artisan Electronics, Inc.
Though my interviews with Artisan were plagued with technical glitches, I found that the staff was welcoming and relaxed. They told me up front what to expect from the environment and what projects they hoped I could contribute. The sense of kindness and respect was palpable, despite the boundaries limiting our social interaction. When I said yes to the internship, I was greeted the first day with friendly words and a package of swag on my desk. I felt immediately like I was home.
At Artisan, the staff is hands-on about learning, but offers students room to create and excel on their terms. The Artisan team equipped me with my own computer for the summer and gave me a list of possible projects to take on, leaving the scheduling up to me. I felt a palpable sense of trust with the projects handed to me, which involved everything from creating new logos for the 25th anniversary to capturing headshots of the staff.
My favorite part about the Artisan Electronics internship program is that the staff offers countless opportunities for us to grow as individuals and team members. We’ve spent extensive time meeting with Dr. Angel Reece from Solidity Consulting to improve our soft skills and integrate our personal values and our work values. We’ve been working collaboratively as a group every two weeks to present our internship progress to a host of supervisors in a formal setting, allowing us to practice our oral communication skills while teambuilding. The internship itself is highly interactive, with collaboration on both short-term and long-term projects. The personal growth element at Artisan contributes significantly to why this internship has prepared me for the real world more than any other internship to date.
I highly recommend Artisan to anyone looking for an internship with corporate-level expertise and a small-business sense of community. Applying for Artisan Electronics through Indiana INTERNnet, and ultimately choosing them, has helped me grow as a thinker, a doer, and a team member in more ways than I could have expected in the midst of the pandemic. I’m grateful to have found a staff that not only values work ethic, but also capitalizes on personal growth and creates a welcoming family environment. When the summer comes to a close, I plan to keep in touch with the staff and my fellow interns after becoming so close to them.
Working at Artisan Electronics truly has been a game-changer for me, and I am forever grateful for this internship.
