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What to Take Away From an Internship You Loved/Hated

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frabz-Youre-telling-me-that-at-this-internship-I-dont-have-to-get-you-5d37aeEveryone can relate to the dreadful feeling that washes over you the morning before your first day at your new internship. The type of anxiety that twists your stomach into knots, forces beads of sweat to appear on your forehead, and makes you second-guess your first-day outfit choice one too many times. As you step foot into your new office, your mind runs at a million miles per minute, ridden with mixed emotions and most of all, fear. Unsure of what lies ahead, you deliberate: Will I enjoy my time at this company? Will I contribute and make a lasting impact? What happens if I hate it??

In reality, not only can we all relate to the anxious feeling leading up to our first day on the job, but we can also empathize with the disappointment or surprise when faced with the reality behind the position description you initially read on the job posting.

My personal experiences with internships in the past have taught me many valuable lessons on what to take away from an employment opportunity, regardless of whether my experience was positive or negative. After being accepted to a renowned company as their summer intern two summers ago, I was more excited than ever to begin summer. As the weeks flew by, and my initial anxiety faded, I came to realize that I hated everything about what I was doing. Nothing had prepared me for the fact that I would be stuck doing chores completely unrelated to the position description, feeling as if I was gaining no valuable skills, performing mindless and laborious tasks with no credit, and without pay to top it all off. It was almost tragic–the buildup and anticipation that I had held onto as I awaited summer because of this job came to a crashing halt, and I dreaded crossing the Golden Gate every morning to go to work.

At that point, I knew I had to do something to change the course of where this suddenly grim summer was heading. After working my connections, I was given the opportunity to work with a company, alongside the company executive, that changed my life and point of view, and turned my summer around. I began working two jobs, knowing I needed an escape from my original position, but not wanting to quit as I had come too far already. The new perspectives and diversity of skills I gained as an employee of the agency (no intern title here!), made me recognize my true potential and the innate skills I already had, which I was able to refine. Not only was I compensated for my work here, but I also felt as if I was given the credit I deserved for my hard work, which had a clear, constructive impact shortly after I arrived. I found myself at my first job, thinking about my second job and using any spare time I had to contact my boss with updates, research brand development, and mentally map out the photo series I was planning to create that following weekend. Eventually, my cubicle at my first job became littered with pink and purple post-it notes crowded with ideas and sketches for my second job.

At the end of the summer, coming out of both these diverging experiences, I realized that I had gained so much, when I previously thought what I had been doing was a waste of time. What I learned from the internship I hated was the fact that I need to have agency and a voice in the company where I work, and simply put, that I would never work in that professional sphere again. I was proud of myself for not quitting, even when I was driven to the edge of my patience, and instead, pushed myself to find something that would occupy my mind and time positively. I took full advantage of my original internship by speaking one-on-one with my superiors and the different artists I encountered, as well as with my other interns. In the end, I was able to make connections and lasting friendships, as well as find out more about my desired career path and myself. Clearly, I gained more than I ever could have imagined from the internship I loved, even having the opportunity to work remotely and for the following summer, which turned out to be even better and more rewarding than the last. Reflecting on my time with this company, I notice that because I was able to wear so many hats and was given many responsibilities where I was able to use my creative perspective and drive to fulfill these goals, I flourished and grew as a young professional and young woman.

In the end, although the initial awe and glamour may wear off, even when you find yourself fetching coffee, spending three hours fixing an evil photocopy machine, or doing any other stereotypical, mind-numbing intern work, there can always be a positive outcome from any experience. Whether that is figuring out exactly where you don’t want to end up, calculating the next steps towards getting where you do want to be, or even making a new connection, you will gain something valuable if you make the best of your potentially despairing intern situation.

Back-up Plans

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To my disappointment, I recently found out I was not chosen for the internship I applied for in Copenhagen. I hadn’t received any notice that the positions had been filled, so finding the information out through other people’s Facebook-updates felt both surprising, and pretty crummy. Despite not trying to get my hopes up, I have been imagining my future as an intern in Copenhagen for months, and now (like a bad break up with the image of my “ideal” gap year), I need to move on and find alternative positions.

My initial reaction was shock, and then panic. It is very hard to get a job in Denmark as an English speaker, and doubly as hard to get a work permit without a job offer. I started researching every English-speaking establishment and publication in the city, and sent emails to each of them, inquiring about jobs and volunteer work. However, as I was researching my options in panic-mode, I started to realize that this rejection actually might have been a blessing in disguise. My goal for my gap-year is to explore my options and verify I want to study in grad school. Yes, the internship would have been great, but this way I can do multiple things to help my reach my decision.

As I’ve mentioned in prior posts, psychology has been a strong interest of mine. I shied away from majoring in psychology in college because I didn’t want to “follow in my parents footsteps,” but after taking Positive Psychology, I was fascinated by the new field. My hypothetical plan now is to take a few preliminary courses in Psychology (in Denmark or the US) to make sure it is what I want to pursue, involve myself in research. If all goes well, I would then apply to a Post-Baccalaureate program in Psychology, and then do a two-year program in Positive Psychology (of course, the specifics are not entirely worked out – but it’s a start).

In a roundabout way, my rejection helped me to focus my energy on deciding what it is I want to work towards instead of relying on having the next year “figured out”. From my list of possible career paths, Positive Psychology involves all of the things I’m looking to do with my life – help people, and work in a creative capacity. I think it would be exciting to break ground on a new field of inquiry, and do something to help people flourish in everyday life.

I meet me in the middle… Part II

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(continued from part I)

I spent a couple of days wearing holes in my bedroom carpet while I tried to decide what to do. I modeled every possible graduate school to career plan I could think of, trying to find a path that excited me. Science or writing? Science or writing? But for all the quality time spent pacing, I kept returning to the same conclusion. I didn’t want to go straight into a PhD program in a single science–that didn’t get me anywhere near my dream job. But neither did I want to give up on doing science completely, there is still too much to learn. I’ve always been a scientist in my heart; I think and make decisions like a scientist, I enjoy exploration and discovery like a scientist. But I am also a writer and a communicator, and I love reaching out and sharing with the world what the scientist in me has discovered. I would rather be writing a great piece for a science journal for kids than sitting in a room staring at a computer screen while data rolls in.

Fortunately, there is a middle ground for almost any decision. In this case, the degree that lies between no science at all and a PhD in science is a master’s degree. But I was still unsure if I wanted to postpone going into a science writing program degree, since that was the most direct path to my dream career. So I did what I always do when I don’t want to make a decision: I made a list, this time of pros and cons of going to a science program first, or jumping straight into writing.

And once again the list made it clear. Most of the science writing programs I had found tended to value applicants with significant research experience, because these students tend to be better able to connect to and communicate with the scientists whose work they are presenting. A brief afternoon spent looking up student bios at such programs showed that a large portion of accepted students came in with a master’s in a science program. These students, like me, loved science and enjoyed doing science, and had taken the time to explore that interest before moving on.

In the end it all made sense: I’m more qualified to go into a science program right now (four years of physics doesn’t leave a lot of time for non-academic writing). Taking a couple of years to do a master’s in a science would also give me the time to boost my writing resume. A part-time job working for small newspaper or student publication would give me a leg up in applying to the science writing programs. I’ll also get to be the scientist for a little while longer, without having to bind myself into a PhD track. And if I am still uncertain at the end of two years, I will be equally well set up to continue on in the PhD of my chosen science, or switch over to science writing.

The point of this plan is that it keeps my options open. Over and over I have found that the more I write my fate in stone, the less happy I am. I am continually reminded by many wiser people in my life that there are many paths to a goal, and just because there is an infrastructure in place does not mean that it must be followed or that following it will make you happier. Every experience in life is a learning process, and everything you learn makes your life richer. So I’m not going off to be a science writer the day after graduation… I’ll be a science writer once I’ve experienced being a scientist and being a writer.

I meet me in the middle… Part I

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As readers may have deduced from my first post a week ago, I have always had a very broad range of academic and personal interests. My dilemma is that my interests are so wide and so many that I often am hesitant to pick just one to pursue in depth, possibly out of some irrational fear that I might be locked into one subject permanently. For the last three years I have had the opportunity to satisfy all of my interests in bits and pieces, taking a class here and a class there while not confining myself to one subject area. But my time at Scripps is coming to a close, and the real world is looking very alien indeed. Where I go from here? How do I even start to pick a single career?

I first began to address these questions last summer after the realization that the job of research scientist was not for me. After much reflection about what it was I really enjoyed about science, I came to the conclusion that I liked doing science experiments and research, but it was learning about science that truly excited me. And I enjoy learning about all kinds of science, and in many different ways. I have also loved communication, and have focused a great deal of personal energy in my life to learning how to communicate effectively. It was clear from half an hour of brainstorming and furious scribbling that my ideal career would have elements of science, logic, communication, writing, and creativity. It seemed so clear that being a science writer would be the ideal job for me. Such a career would allow me to learn about new science constantly, and communicate exciting new discoveries to others and express my creativity in a variety of formats. Ah, at last I had found my dream job…

So I began the search afresh. I glued myself to Google for a week, hitting all of the major graduate program search sites and, at times, blindly searching on the web. I tried every combination of the words “science writing” and “science communication” in every department and every school I could find. I even got lucky and hit a few sites that were designed specifically for people like me that listed all of the programs focusing on science writing. In the end I’m fairly sure I found every science writing program in existence in the United States and Canada. The next step was to investigate each program briefly, looking for things like subjects covered, classes offered, and internships available. Most of the programs were dedicated to writing for medical journals, a specific branch that didn’t grab me. But once the programs that weren’t great fits were weeded out, the list was condensed down to a healthy size of eight excellent programs. Each had a variety of great classes that covered a multitude of media types and spectacular internships at great organizations.

That was when the uncertainty began to set in. I had run across one program in my search that was an awesome hybrid program: a year immersion in environmental science and a year immersion in journalism. It resulted in a dual master’s in environmental science and science writing. Among the many programs I had investigated, this one was unique in its inclusion of science with science writing. It suddenly hit me that if I went straight into a science writing program, I would be unlikely to even do classroom or lab science again, unless I switched tracks later. And if I did decide to switch tracks, it would be far more difficult to get into a science program after having been removed from science for two years. After the first bout of cold feet concerning a phD in astronomy, I was suddenly hesitant again. Was I really done with science? Sure, I didn’t want to do research permanently, but was I ready to never do it again? It seemed that no matter what choice I made, I would be cut out of one path or the other, the exact thing I feared most.

(continued in part II)

Plans are made to be changed.

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From freshman year of high school I had been dead-set on becoming a research astronomer. I had a plan. Namely, college major in physics, graduate school in astrophysics, job at a research lab. It was a simple plan. It was THE PLAN. But like anyone, my interests shifted. For me the shift was subtle, and slow over time. In the end, three years of ignoring what really fascinated me while trying to follow a path that was no longer my true passion had produced some results that made me terribly unhappy. Despite all of this, I am the type of person who makes a PLAN, and sticks to it. It wasn’t until I read at least two articles on the subject of astronomy graduate school that I began to think maybe THE PLAN was no longer working. When you’re reading an article entitled “So you want to go to graduate school in astronomy?” and your answers to the questions they are posing are continually “no”, something needs to change. I realized that if I continued on my current path, I would end up in a career I would not enjoy. THE PLAN came crashing down. After six years of every step being predetermined for me (except the steps I chose to take on my own), I suddenly had not the slightest idea of which way to go.

So this summer I started Googling for graduate programs that looked interesting. I knew I still loved science, but science by itself somehow was not creative enough to satisfy me. After flailing about the web for what seemed like forever, it occurred to me that I was approaching the problem the wrong way. My interests had shifted. I needed to reconnect with what it was I was really looking for. I made a list of things that I liked to do, from the normal things like reading and writing, to the more specific activities such as solving puzzles and fostering excitement in others. The complete list confirmed for me that my interests were far more interdisciplinary and creatively oriented than they had been six years ago. Next, instead of trying to find the right program, I made a list of the right types of jobs. Some things that made the list were writing for scientific magazines, writing and editing for science TV shows, designing museum exhibits, advocating for science funding at the national level, and even PR for a large research organization like NASA or JPL. Suddenly the trend emerged: all of the jobs that I would be happy to do for the rest of my life had strong components of science writing and creativity. Suddenly I had a much narrower search parameter.

I began to look up people who had such jobs, in an attempt to learn what academic paths led them to their position in life. In my hours of web surfing I also ran across the web pages of the American Astronomical Society and the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. Both organizations provided great material informing the general public of what careers in their fields were really like. An hour’s worth of skimming confirmed for me that research astronomer was no longer my life passion, but that a job as a science writer was looking more interesting by the minute. Both sites also had examples of jobs in their field that even I had not thought of.

So armed with relevant information and a new point of view, I set out on the true quest for the right graduate program…

(To be continued)