4 Tips to Ace Your Internship
By Gina Celentano, student at Macauley Honors College at CUNY
Growing up in New York City, you learn to never talk to strangers. I made an exception on a spring day while sitting in the student lounge where I am a Sophomore at the Macauley Honors College at CUNY. A young professionally dressed woman came in and went straight to the front desk. To set the scene, I had just finished my physics final and had decided to retreat to the Macaulay College building for the first time all semester. In the quiet of the reading room, I heard the young woman’s voice carry over the clicking on computer keyboards and the word “internship.”
My friend and I looked at each other with excited smiles. “Go up to her and ask her about it,” my friend Sophia whispered. She pushed me in the front desk’s direction and said “you don’t have anything to lose.” With everything to gain since I had been wanting to find part time work but wasn’t sure how or where to get it, I decided to tap the woman on the shoulder. Here name was Audrey, and she was the executive assistant at Million Dollar Women, where they wanted to find a summer intern. After a few phone calls, I was hired!
I typically worked around 15 hours a week, and was in-person at their Upper West Side offices for about half of that time. Because Million Dollar Women offers online business programs, most of the work had to do with online platforms and I got to use my programming skills as a computer science major when they decided to help update their web site. I commented to Julia, the CEO, that I was learning so much, and she encouraged me to share my top four tips for a successful internship in this blog (I am only the second guest blogger here, cool!). She thought it might help other CEOs to know what to encourage their interns to do, and other students like me to know where to speak up when at their first job/internship.
1. Advocate for yourself
I had always considered myself outspoken, from high school debating to outreach volunteer work, so speaking up for myself was second nature. When Julia suggested I think about what I wanted from the internship during one of our 1:1 calls and come back and tell her what that was, I initially shrugged it off. I realized later on that she was right. I wasn’t actually telling her my goals and aspirations. As a result, there was a large gap between what I was sharing and what I was secretly hoping for. It’s easy as an intern to forget that you are there first and foremost to learn and to gain experience. Sharing my goals with Julia allowed her to tailor my tasks to align with my learning objectives. I told Julia that I wanted to have a better understanding of the inner workings of a successful business, and she followed through. She took the time to invite me to staff meetings and frequently paused to teach me about their online platforms and marketing they did, including CRMs to SEO and SEM, which were all new to me (see definitions below if they are new to you too).
2. It’s ok to have no clue
From deciphering the intricacies of the Squarespace platform to being assigned to learn a new AI tool and then teach it to the whole team, I learned embrace the learning curve. Admitting when you don’t know something can be daunting, whether that be the features of a certain platform or business jargon, but admitting this is the first step. I quickly befriended Google and I can personally attest to the fact that if you’ve wondered about it, someone else has too and there is probably an answer there.
3. Stop worrying about being perfect and just try
Because of my perfectionistic tendencies, starting off a task with little prior knowledge and preparation felt formidable. I can still remember how paralyzing it was to start off my first social media post for Julia. I had never heard of Canva before, let alone used it. I was thoroughly intimated and secretly hoped that she’d forget that she had given me this task. Starting the project was the most difficult part but once I overcame this fear of the unknown, I quickly learned the ins and outs of Canva. I had to remind myself that the point of an internship is to dip your toes into as many pools as possible but more realistically, sometimes you have to dive in headfirst.
4. Communicate, communicate, communicate
Being able to effectively communicate is probably the most imperative fundamental of running a successful business. That became really clear to me this summer. I remember being on the phone with our Social Media Coordinator with Julia and asking her quite vaguely to review my work. Julia turned to me and said “You need to be a lot more specific with what we need help with, everyone has a lot going on. Tell here exactly which part you need help with, and when you need to know by”. I hadn’t realized at the time the importance of specificity in an environment where everyone has a million projects and tasks on their mind. Communication is so much more than simple exchanges — effective and efficient communication is almost an artform.
When school started up again I had to get back to my heavy course-load as a sophomore at Macauley. I was sorry to say goodbye to Julia and the team still sometimes think of things I learned at Million Dollar Women (especially the “advocate for yourself” which is just as important in college). When next summer rolls around, I look forward to being the one to walk up to a front desk somewhere asking for an internship!
CRM = Customer Relations Management (a tool to email your customers)
SEO =Search Engine Optimization (making sure your web site is “findable” by search engines like Google)
SEM = Search Engine Marketing (paying for clicks on search engines)