I have officially hit week 10 of my internship with Indiana INTERNnet!
I feel it is the perfect time to update you on everything I have done thus far, and also talk through some things I have learned along the way.
First things first
Internships are a great way to discover the types of things you want out of your career, while also “test driving” different paths you may want to look into. For myself I learned that I truly love social media marketing. Before Indiana INTERNnet, I had zero experience running social media accounts that weren’t my own. I found myself looking forward to creating posts and researching trends that would boost engagement on our site. Creating content feels like second nature at this point and I will most definitely be looking for careers that will allow me to have that creative freedom in the future!
The most rewarding part about my entire internship experience is that I was able to reaffirm that I made the right degree choice for me. Public relations is such a broad field, that when I took the position as the outreach intern, I wasn’t entirely sure what that would entail. Client outreach has solidified my love for interpersonal communications and allowed me to use my communications minor to its full potential.
Key takeaways
I feel truly blessed to have gained so much real world knowledge from my internship. I have a team that encourages me to try new things, trusts my ideas and allows me to ask thousands of questions. This is absolutely crucial for any company you work for because it allows everyone to do their best and makes for a positive work environment.
One of the biggest tasks I was given at the start of my internship was to meet with members from each department and start building the foundation of my career network. I had never been taught how to do this, but always heard the term networking, so I was a bit nervous. After meeting with members from our communications department, I realized that I had so much to gain from listen to their stories and advice. You truly are cheating yourself if you aren’t putting in the effort to hear how the top people got to where they are. Not only was I able to make these connections for myself, but I was able to take their advice and share it here on the blog to help out other professionals!
Conclusion
I am so passionate about interns and the internship process. It is still so crazy to think that four months ago I used Indiana INTERNnet to find an internship for college credit, and now I am on the Indiana INTERNnet team! This opportunity has allowed me to get a feel for what a job in the real world looks like, while also allowing me to learn along the way. I have so much knowledge to bring to my future because of this experience and I want to thank Indiana INTERNnet for making this possible for not only myself, but thousands of other interns each year!
