How to Make the Most of an Internship with Little Direction

By: Julie Smith

This summer was the best one I have ever had in my life and a big reason for that was my internship. My internship was with the European-Atlantic Group, a non-profit political organization in London. I did not exactly know what to expect from this internship, but I was excited none-the-less.

My first day on the job was somewhat introductory, I got assigned a project here and there and after a few days, I realized that my daily tasks were going to be pretty simple.  Once I felt comfortable enough, I started to ask my boss for more tasks. He gave me a few extra things to do, but most were fairly mundane.  So at this point, I took it upon myself to do a few side projects on my own.

I used my knowledge of social media to develop strategic databases for our event guest lists, by extracting followers from Twitter. I created a Facebook event to promote upcoming things we were doing. I wrote template press releases and an email blast invitation. After I had all of these things perfected, I showed them to my boss.  He was so impressed that I took my own initiative that he took the time to listen to my pitches and understand what I had created.

At this point, my boss knew that I was dedicated to the job, so he gave me more opportunities to succeed.  He let me send out my email invitation blast, which was something that this traditional organization had never done before.  He also let me utilize social media. The biggest compliment however, was that since we had formed such a great bond, and since he saw how professional I had been, he gave me a huge task the night of our event. At our event, there was a Russian diplomat in attendance who my boss was really interested in getting a direct contact for. My boss assigned me the task of securing his business card. I was shocked he asked me, since I was just intern status and he had other colleagues present. I am proud to say I succeeded with that, but even more proud to say that I had worked hard enough to be give that opportunity.

The biggest lesson that I can take away from my internship this summer is to always go above and beyond what is expected of you. People notice what you do, and if you do something unexpected it bodes well in your favor. Do not be discouraged by an internship that might not be ideal, make the most of it!