Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

What do I want to achieve from my Internship?

This summer, I have the opportunity to be an intern with Saucey, an alcohol delivery company based in LA. Being an international student, my goals for the internship were somewhat unique. Before my internship began, I made a list of things I wanted to achieve from it.

While making this list, the first thing I thought of was that I wanted to experience what the working lifestyle is like, which includes being in an office environment for a large portion of the day, for 5 days of the week. This was something that excited me, but also made me anxious since it was going to be a change from my college routine where I was used to 2-3 classes a day with breaks in between and a 3 day weekend. Having completed close to 4 weeks of my internship, the working lifestyle is challenging, however, has been extremely rewarding in terms of making me more organized, disciplined, sincere and has taught me the importance of planning. My second goal, somewhat related to the first one, was to learn more about the working culture in the US and more particularly in a startup. This internship is my first American job, therefore I had no expectations of what it would be like to work in the US. The working culture and mindset are very different, from what I have experienced, in the US as compared to back home in India. The office environment is nothing that I anticipated it to be. All the employees are always cheerful, the founders of the company are approachable and everyone, in general, is extremely friendly and wants to ensure I am learning and having a good time! The office is very casual, with music on all the time, snacks available, making it a very comfortable and homely work environment, something I didn’t foresee.

Being an international student, finding an internship as a rising junior in the US is extremely challenging. I found this internship through my personal network – my brother. This led me to realize the importance of growing your professional network, which was my third goal on the list. I wanted to ensure I make connections with the employees of the company, create a bond with the people I would work closely with. Since I’m interning with a startup, there aren’t many employees, and the office is on one floor. This means the founders of the company and the employees all sit together and have a friendly relationship with one another, giving me the opportunity to talk to, and learn from people who have so many unique experiences.

Moving on, further on my list, my goals were more work-oriented, in terms of what I will be able to say I learned from this experience. My goal was to learn new software and understand more about operations particularly, and in general about the other departments as well, which include data, marketing, and tech. At this point in my internship, I can say that I have been introduced to numerous software like Looker, Amplitude, Fountain and a few others. A few projects I worked on required me to use this software to support my points. There is a learning curve associated with the software, however, once you use it on a daily basis, it doesn’t take too long to get comfortable with it. Furthermore, I have been able to learn in depth about the 3 sides to operations related to Saucey, which are delivery, retailers, and customers. I have done tasks that relate to each of these, which has given me a great overview of operations, and the kind of work the operations department overlooks. I have also been given a few tasks related to other departments, like data, which has helped me understand how certain tasks can be related to more than one department.           

This was an overview of my goals, which I believe I’m on track to achieve. I believe it is a good practice to make a list of the goals you want to achieve, which makes it easier for you to focus on the important aspects, rather than lose focus and get overwhelmed by all the changes.