Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Keeping the Enthusiasm

A two month, nine to five internship is not an easy task. The first two weeks is great: getting to know everyone, getting to know the business and, learning new things. The following week you get to doing actual work with occasional supervision to make sure you have a hang of it. Three out of Eight weeks done and it went by probably like a breeze; “This should be easy” I thought to myself. Now in your fourth and fifth weeks you are doing things by yourself, conversant with the ins and outs of your business, you feel like a working person: you are proud of yourself.  By the sixth week, if you are someone who loves to sleep in like me, the constant early mornings have probably started getting to you, maybe your tasks have gotten monotonous or some friends may be done with their internships and could have started hanging out (without you because you have to be at work). By this time you are probably just looking forward to every Friday or just the general end of your internship. If you are still extremely enthusiastic as you were in your first week, then that is rare and I am happy for you but if you are not, here are a few tips for you:

  1. Talk to people in different departments or people you do not usually talk to.
  2. Ask your supervisor to allow you to possibly explore different parts of the business.
  3. Do not think about it as just getting through the last few weeks but rather leaving the best impression within the last few weeks.
  4. You many not think this may help but change where you have lunch. If you usually have lunch in a cafeteria, switch it up. Try the park or a nearby restaurant. Changing your scenery for even an hour can help you become more enthusiastic.
  5. Put yourself to a new task. If you have some extra time do some research and work on something that could help your business. It will be your own idea, which you will be interested in thus boosting your enthusiasm.