Tag Archives: Summer Internship

Life Lessons from the Theatre

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Moving to a new city and working full time, while only for the summer, was a challenge.  And while many things changed I found that a few lessons that I learned outside of the workplace have been surprisingly applicable in it, especially in the intern role.  Here are a few life lessons that I learned from Theatre that have served me well in the workplace…

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People want results, not excuses.

When something goes wrong, excuses are many people’s first response.  It’s a way to defend ourselves from personal attack when things don’t go according to plan.  By placing the blame for a mistake on outside forces, we make our egos feel better.  But blaming things outside of our control doesn’t help with our personal growth or increase other’s trust in our abilities.  Mistakes happen.  Everyone understands that and everyone has made stupid mistakes.  In my experience, you earn far more respect by owning your mistakes and following through on promises to make amends.  If you can follow up a mistake by doing better next time, people remember and respect that.  They don’t want to sit around listening to excuses all day, they want to know what you’re going to do about it going forward.  Like in theater, you can say “I missed my cue because I was grabbing a prop” or you can say “I’ll be there on time next run through”.  With the second response you acknowledge the mistake and show how you’re going to improve going forward.  I find it’s the same in the workplace.  As an intern because you’re often asked to do new projects at the drop of a hat.  As you are still learning, mistakes happen, and by following them up with an appropriate response, you can show your employers your maturity and ingenuity.

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Prepare what you think is going to be helpful, not what’s going to boost your ego.

With a natural desire to impress your superiors or stand out in some way, it can be tempting to try and work on the coolest and most innovative project aside from your daily tasks.  Something where they will praise your innovation.  And while creating something amazing can be really impactful, I’ve discovered the best way to make a positive impression on your employer is to spend your time on projects that will serve a need in the company and not on projects that are flashy or cool.  People are very appreciative when you find a way to make their lives easier.  Like in Theater, simple things like coming on time and being prepared, learning your lines ahead of time, and solving small problems before your superior has to will earn you respect.  So you don’t have to be a genius innovator to stand out in the workplace as an intern but if you pay attention and can find simple ways to leave the company better than when you found it, people will remember you.

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Six Savvy Things To-Do After Your Summer Internship Ends

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So you nailed the interview and got the internship. Now that the summer is over and the internship is completed, what’s next?

1. Write your employer a thank-you note.

It seems to go without saying that you should thank your employer or internship coordinator for the opportunity. Whether or not you ended up enjoying the field you were in that summer, it is important to acknowledge the time and effort put forth by those who trained and assisted you. This note should be handwritten and personal.

2. Ask your employer for constructive feedback about your work from the summer.

Although it can be uncomfortable to receive constructive criticism, this step is essential. Not only will it help you grow as a person, but it will additionally demonstrate your dedication to the company. Showing interest in developing your work-ethic is a lifelong skill that should be mastered early.

3. Update your resume and LinkedIn profile.

You just spent your summer working—give yourself a pat on the back! Update your credentials while the details of what you did are still fresh in your mind. As always on a resume, show and don’t tell! Avoid generic descriptions and be honest about your achievements.

4. Update and maintain your social networking.

Establishing and maintaining these relationships may lead to new opportunities or simply allow you to pick the brains of professionals in the field. You just expanded your professional network! Do not let these connections go to waste. Add them on LinkedIn and grab their business cards. Send an email if you do any work related to the field during the school year. Often, your employers like to see the impact that they have had on your career and will appreciate that you are still thinking about them.

5. Maintain professionalism.

Although your time at the internship may be over, you should not change your professional relationship with the individuals inside of the company. This goes hand-in-hand with maintaining media-platforms that are professionally sound. The “would my grandmother be appalled at this” rule-of-thumb generally works well here. In addition, filter your opinions about your experience. Even if you do not intend to return to work for the company, you should try to avoid bad-mouthing your employer or their practice. If what you say gets back to them, you may threaten the potential for a letter of recommendation or future employment with the company or those they know.

6. Ask for the job!

If you loved your work this summer, don’t be afraid to inquire about the opportunity for paid-positions in the future. These conversations must be direct, but graceful. There is a time and a place to talk to your employer and it is not in the middle of their workday. If it does not work out, then thank them for their time and move on! You will approach your next experience with a breadth of new knowledge, a firmer handshake, and a bigger smile.

Do you have any tips for following-up on summer internships? We would love to hear them! Leave a comment below and tell us about your experience.

Beginings, Endings, and Reflections

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Hello Everyone! Welcome back for another term! Or if you are out of school, welcome to another day in the life. While it is that time of year where we excitedly look forward to what the future has in store, read for new adventures to begin, it is also a time to remember and reflect on the recent past.  Most notably the summer that came to a screeching halt with the introduction of new classes.  I think oftentimes as students we do not take the time to reflect on our summers because of excitement about what lies ahead.  But it is important to remember and digest our experiences because of the diamonds of knowledge we can glean when we reflect.  We are able to see the bigger picture now that the canvas is full of paint.  Because I had an incredibly jam packed summer where I was working on preparing for a career after college, I will spend the majority of my blog posts this summer reflecting on the experience as well as my thoughts on what lies ahead.  To start with, let me outline my experiences and how I got my internships.

Yes, I did get the grammar right.  I indeed had two internships this summer, both in the entertainment business at two small Film and TV development/production companies.  What scares people so much about the entertainment business is the idea that you need to know people to succeed.  And while it is true that connections are VERY important (as I found out) it wasn’t nearly as hard as I would have thought to start building them.  You just have to put yourself out there.  It helps that Scripps is in the LA area so there are quite a few alums working in the business but I bet that students of basically any college have gone onto working in entertainment.  And you never know, you family may know someone who knows someone and you can make connections that way.  But I found that once I started voicing my interest to people, they were more than happy to connect me on to people in the business.  After tons of informational interviews, mostly with Scripps alums, I managed to secure my internships.  First at Endgame Entertainment.  Last fall I connected with a senior who had done several entertainment internships.  I asked her to coffee at the Motley to hear about her experiences and she connected me to a Scripps alum there.  I spoke with that Scripps alum who encouraged me to apply to their intern program (they had taken Claremont people before).  From there I went through the regular application process, bolstered by that connection, and got the internship.  My second internship at Oddlot Entertainment, I got more directly through participation in CP&R events.  I went on the Media Networking Trek in Fall of 2016 and we visited the Oddlot office.  I stayed in contact with the Scripps Alum who actually runs their intern program.  I was eventually able to apply from there and got the internship.  I had a really fantastic time at both and I can’t wait to share more about my experience over the summer.  Hopefully sharing my experiences in entertainment can dispel some of the myths and mysteries about it as well as help anyone who thinks a career in storytelling might be for them.  Happy Fall!

“I’m bad at math,” and other lies I tell myself.

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This past week, I found out that I was offered a spot in an internship program that I applied for a few months ago. I am incredibly excited, but most of all I am so relieved that it worked out, and that I have one less thing to worry about.

This internship acceptance came at a good time, especially because these past few months have been filled with constant talk of internships, jobs, majors, study-abroad, housing, and all of the other long-term stuff that sends my mind into an anxious whirlwind. I have had many moments where I have felt like a “failure” for not securing an internship, and for not majoring in something “useful” or “lucrative.”

I recently declared a major in “Humanities: Interdisciplinary Studies in Culture,” and while I think it is a good fit for me, I often find myself wishing that I could have majored in something more “impressive,” like biochemistry or neuroscience. Nothing is stopping me from pursuing those majors, but they just don’t feel like majors that are right for me. In addition, for most of my life I have convinced myself that I am horrible at math and science, which rules out a lot of majors and minors. In hindsight, I think a lot of my hatred for these subjects stems (no pun intended) from some negative experiences I had with these subjects in elementary and middle school. I have told myself that I was bad at certain subjects for so long, that I eventually internalized it and began to hate them as well.

It also doesn’t help that I have a twin brother who is much more mathematically inclined. He is majoring in computer science, and I often find myself jealous of the fact that he is, in my opinion, pursuing such an impressive major.

I have done a lot of reflecting on my strengths and weaknesses this past semester, and I think I have become much more at-peace with the fact that I enjoy social sciences and humanities much more than I enjoy math or most forms of science. The thing is, we need all sorts of people in the world, and the fact that I am not going down a pre-med track does not make me any less valuable as a human, it just means I have different interests, strengths, and goals than some other people. Does the fact that I’m not majoring in a STEM field make me ‘less smart’ or ‘less hard-working?” Not really. Will people judge me for majoring in a kind of vague and potentially ‘less rigorous’ major? Probably. Does that matter? Not really.

And while I am still pretty convinced that I don’t have a mind that naturally “gets” math, I had a really positive experience with a science class last semester that pushed me outside of my academic comfort zone, and really caused me to rethink some of the lies and half-truths that I tell myself. I took a chemistry class called Land Air and Ocean Science to fulfill my natural science GE, and even though I was filled with trepidation (it had been quite a few years since I had taken a chemistry course,) I ended up LOVING the class. A large part of this was due to the fact that the professor understood that everyone in the class was taking it for their GE, and that many of us did not consider ourselves to be “sciency.” Thus, she tried really hard to make the material clear, engaging, and straightforward. Like I said, I have had some really negative experiences with math and science classes that left me feeling stupid and incompetent, so this class was such a breath of fresh air.

Overall, this class also helped me realize that it is not always helpful to narrowly categorize ourselves. As mentioned, my twin brother and I kind of grew up knowing that he was the “math-and-science-one,” and I was the “reading-writing-social-science-one.” We both placed ourselves in narrow categories that probably did us both a disservice through making us believe that we weren’t really capable of doing the things we were less talented at.

Me, when it comes to math.

Me, when it comes to math.

There have probably been a lot of things I have missed out on in life because I have convinced myself that I’m bad at it. I am now determined to stop categorizing myself in unhelpful ways, so that I will be more willing to go out of my comfort zone and try new things—even if I fail at first. Honestly, if I ended up loving a chemistry class—something I never thought was possible—then I can imagine there are so many other “lies” I tell myself that are probably not entirely valid. In the end, I have mostly come to terms with the fact that it’s okay for me not to love certain subjects, but I am also determined to challenge some of my internalized notions about what I “like” and “don’t” like, and I suggest that we all try this exercise out more often.

Paperwork, Paperwork, and More Paperwork

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Coming back from spring break, in addition to over the break, I have found myself filling out so much paperwork for so many different applications and programs. Whether it’s been applying for scholarships, filling out paperwork for study abroad programs, applying for summer jobs, or registering for summer classes, the stacks of paper keep getting higher and higher.

I decided that I needed a system to organize myself and make sure that I remember important deadlines. Here’s what I have proposed for myself:

  1. Highlight deadlines and key dates on information sheets that are giving you a lot of information all at once. It’s likely that most of what’s written is important, but by highlighting the main info, you can glance at the sheet and remind yourself of what’s coming up.
  2. On that same note, place these papers in a visible place, somewhere you walk by regularly, so that you will pass by often enough not to forget what the paper is even talking about. I often place them on my bulletin board so that I can see them on a regular basis and refer back to them when making plans or trying to schedule meetings or weekend outings.
  3. Get a calendar or planner and write major dates and deadlines down so that you can plan around them and ration your time. Writing it on post-its is also an option. I recently wrote about keeping a planner to organize yourself, and that helps so much when it comes to these larger deadlines because it can help you manage your time better. If you know you have a large exam coming up, in addition to a job application deadline, you can start the application earlier so that you can spend more time focusing on studying for your exam.
  4. Don’t wait until the last minute to start applications or to start paperwork. Oftentimes, questions arise while you are working on an essay or filling something out, and you will do yourself a favor if you have not waited until the last minute because it means that you have time to contact someone and ask them questions about what to do. In addition, it will alleviate more stress in the long run. Getting stressed about these sorts of things is inevitable, but you can reduce the amount you feel by taking the work in chunks. That way, you’re not trying to it all at once, which is always a recipe for stress.
  5. Make sure that you are still having enough time to get all of your schoolwork done outside of your paperwork. Although it may seem like solidifying summer plans is the most important thing, but it is also very important to remember that you are a student first and foremost. If job applications are stressing you out because you need the money to help pay for Scripps or are stressed for other financial reasons, reach out to those in charge of the hiring process. Letting them know that you are interested is something they will view positively. If you don’t feel comfortable doing that, there are many resources on campus (including CP&R!) that are here to help you navigate these exact situations. If you are worried about applications or paperwork due for study abroad programs, reach out to either Neva or Patricia in the SAGE office. They are very accommodating and are wonderful to talk with.

Paperwork can be overwhelming, so it’s good to have a system in place that can help keep you organized and on top of things. If you have any ideas that I didn’t list, comment below! Here’s to the second half of the semester!!