5 Things I’ve Learned Through My Internship (So Far)
By: Brenna Dunckel
Miller Resource Group – Brenna Dunckel
Whatever it is that you do, invest yourself in it.
Not money, not assets, but thought, time, effort… In any job, truly investing in what you do and who you work with will undoubtedly make you better. Having personal investment for your work fosters growth, encourages motivation, and is a catalyst for success. Make the time to invest in your coworkers. In a truly “team-minded” office culture, success is as much shared as it is individual.
Learning should be both inevitable and intentional.
No matter what your level of experience, you should be learning from your work, peers, and interactions every day. In addition to the situational knowledge, intentionally set out to put yourself in unfamiliar circumstances and draw from your environment to learn, it will improve you.
The corporate world is a gigantic picture, people are the brush strokes.
Do your best not to get caught up in the pace, in the size of working in a corporate setting. Hold on to the fact that people are at the heart and, at the end of the day, people inherently respond to the same things. Things like sincerity, transparency, willingness, hard work, to name a few.
Network, and network with mindfulness.
The phrase, “it’s who you know”, as seemingly surface level as it may seem, holds incredible truth. Every great connection you make with someone is as good as adding a door key to your metaphorical key ring of opportunity. Networking and/or possibly getting referred allows you and your potential opportunity to skip the initial uncertainty of trust for both sides.
“Best jobs are never given out, they are taken by the best candidates.” -Gary Miller
When you are searching for an entry level position, it may be easy to feel slightly victimized by the difficulty of breaking into the working world. Do your best to fight that feeling, as you are only doing yourself a major disservice. Take a risk. Accept that the greatest opportunities very rarely happen by chance, and that “fate” is often a matter of boldly jumping in with two feet. Ask for the opportunity.
Final Thought: On the first official day of my internship, I made a cup of peppermint tea. On the tea bag read: “One thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning.”
-James Russell Lowell