Taking Responsibility
I know what it is like to be the typical intern, grabbing coffee for guests and making endless amounts of PowerPoint slides. Obviously, any intern has to do some grunt work that probably is not the most enjoying or fulfilling, and even at my current internship, there were instances where I had to do trivial tasks. However, while talking with my boss one day he mentioned to me how he would like me to run an ad campaign from start to finish, including everything from working with the creative team to construct and design the ad to communicating with publishers to figure out when we could run the ad. At first, I was quite intimidated, as it seemed like a lot of responsibility and work for someone who has only shadowed and seen a few parts of an ad campaign process. I felt like I was not quite ready for the whole task, but I agreed as it seemed interesting and I wanted to challenge myself.
When I got some time to actually think about the task and break it down into components to figure how I would tackle the campaign, I actually found myself enjoying the challenge much more than I initially anticipated. Even though I was not always sure on what or how to do something, taking charge of my own campaign made me feel like I actually had a place and impact in and outside of the company, much more than when I was doing mundane work. I think it is vital for companies to give responsibilities to interns, not only to keep the interns busy but also to actually motivate them to take accountability and try something. I know that having the chance to run my own campaign made me a more determined and motivated intern on all fronts, and I highly encourage interns to ask for or take whatever responsibility they can, even if it initially seems scary.