Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Four Departments, One Intern: My Experiences in a Rotational Internship

My internship consisted of an eight-week rotational program consulting for the Community Development, Operations, IT and Business Development departments. I would begin each program with a briefing of tasks followed by an assignment of my “project leads” who essentially served as my supervisors for the project. At the conclusion of every two-week rotation, I presented my findings to the supervisors, as well as other chief executives of the company. 

The rotational structure helped expand my understanding of the company while working closely with several key members, allowing me to understand their role and departments from a detailed perspective. For instance, when I was assigned new project leads every two weeks, I made sure to set up meetings with them as soon as possible to understand the project at hand. Through this program, I worked on projects that both built upon my strengths and challenged me to strengthen my areas of weakness. 

While working on projects for the Operations, Community and Business Development departments, I leveraged past experiences of analyzing and generating data reports, events planning, and creating strategic plans for the company. However, when I started my project for the IT department, I was already quite nervous about the task as IT has always been an area where I have the least confidence and expertise. Regardless, I was able to learn by pushing myself to identify the technical weaknesses of the company while outlining tangible and actionable steps for improvement.

Upon reflection of my internship, I can confidently say that I walked away not only building upon my tangible strengths but also having successfully challenged my weaknesses in an effort to improve my confidence as well as my technical capabilities.