It’s a New Beginning!

Yes this is week 6 but it’s also honestly like you’re back at a place of new beginnings after last week’s evaluations and feedback sessions. It’s like you’ve reset yourself with new goals and new direction for your project with all the knowledge from the first half.

Keep grinding on those goals, you know the things you want to work on and improve in these next few weeks so create metrics for those and measure your success. Also make sure to keep your manager in the loop on how these are going to show that you’re actually taking their advice and excited to grow.

With that said, I also want this week to be about exploring your company at large and making sure you keep up your intern connections.

Get Involved with Resource Groups

If you haven’t already, this is a great time to start seeing what your company offers in terms of resources and assistance in growing your skills or education. In the beginning, you can have blinders on and purely focus on your project but now that you’re in a more comfortable position, it’s the perfect time.

Employee resource groups are almost like clubs you can join where you’ll meet like-minded individuals and people that were and are in the same boat as you that you can reach out to for advice. They also usually host some banger events and they’re a great place to make more friends and contacts within the company. I would recommend you find at least two ERGs that appeal to you and go to a meeting each. Like in college, the only way you’re gonna meet new people is by getting out there.

The other major types of events you should look out for are conferences and webinars that people from your company are going to or that are hosted by your company. For example, if you’re in Data and working with Databricks, you could tag along to a Databricks conference or if you’re in marketing, going to a Salesforce conference could be invaluable. So ask around and look at past articles in your internal database for the people that usually attend or sponsor these and reach out to them for invitations. You can do the same for events your company is hosting and see how you can get involved.

Keep up the Intern Cohort

The program directors will host a bunch of events in the first few weeks but they will start to taper off at this point. This means it’s really easy to get lost in your work and not have as many social interactions cause there’s just fewer opportunities.

That’s why I think now is an excellent time for you to set up something that will help you create a stronger bond with your fellow interns. Maybe suggest a trip to an amusement park or a hike or something downtown wherever you are. If you’re kinda shy, you can organize it with a few interns you’re close with and then invite the others so you’re at least guaranteed to have some company and it’s easier for them to say yes.

The other thing I would highly recommend is taking to interns outside of your domain. In one of my internships, I connected with an intern in sales and business management and even the walk over to the business building was such a different experience. We talked for almost 3 hours and it was just so cool to share all the things we’ve learned and see each other’s worlds. If you have the time and opportunity, go reach out to someone in a role that intrigues you and go learn more about them.

That’s it for week 6, I hope your new beginning goes great and make sure to keep your friendships and connections with the interns strong!

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