It’s February, which means the time to look for internships is upon us. It’s been upon us for quite a while, and I promise you, I haven’t been procrastinating! I’ve been diligently searching for and applying for internships since January!
Well, that’s partially true. I have, by now, applied to one internship, and sent out some inquiring emails looking for work or looking for recommendations. I sent one email basically begging for work to a professor who taught a class I took last spring, and one to a radio and podcast production company. I also sent an email to a professor asking him to write a recommendation for my internship application.
I’ve been talking to a couple friends recently about their internship search processes. One of my friends struggles against her anxiety to send out important emails. I can definitely understand her fear, but I think it helps to think about how low the stakes really are when you’re sending an inquiry email. Of course, no one likes to be rejected. On the other hand, being rejected over email is probably the least-personal, most-removed way to be rejected. So even if the rejection makes you cry, at least you’re in your room sitting at your laptop when you start crying, and not face-to-face with your physics professor.
Trust me, it’s not fun to cry in front of your physics professor.
Anyway, hopefully the rejection doesn’t make you cry–because even if they do turn you down, it’s not like you worked on an application or your resume for hours or anything. All you did was send an inquiring email. Plus, professors get so many emails anyway, that if you sent a professor a request for a recommendation or something, and they turn you down, that professor will probably forget all about it within the ten seconds it takes for another email to arrive in their inbox.
And if it’s a potential employer you sent the email to? Well, it’s still not so bad if you get rejected. You don’t have to accidentally bump into them on campus, and, like that professor, they’ll probably forget all about it once they get their next email.
Like I said, no one likes to be rejected, but keep in mind that it could pay off. I was recently talking to a friend who sent an inquiry email to a company looking for a job and actually got one. In terms of my own experience, I sent out an email to a professor last semester, and she offered me work over the summer, too. Sometimes all you have to do is ask: sometimes, just sending that email is the best thing to do. The stakes are low, and you won’t know until you try, after all.