Some lessons I learned during my internship that could not be learned in the classroom are how to be proactive, completing the steps to actually implementing an ERP system, and client communication over the phone.
Since I’m just an intern I do not have a workload of my own and am reliant on my team members to delegate work to me, so part of what I learned about being proactive is asking for work from each team member that way they were aware I had free time to help them on their projects.
As far as implementing an ERP system, we can learn theory in the classroom, but when its an actual client it is a whole new experience and how to handle the changes are a part of the lessons I have learned.
Lastly, phone calls are my biggest weakness, but a part of being a good consultant is being able to communicate effectively over the phone to the client. Good phone communication allows meetings to go quicker, the correct information gathered, and the reduction in confusion as to what needs to be done.
One of the most important lessons that I’ve learned from being in the workplace is to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. As someone who likes the organized structure of classes with syllabi and set due dates for assignments, understanding that the environment of the workplace is ever-changing is so important. Deadlines change, meetings will get re-scheduled, or things may just not go according to plan, and understanding how to adapt/adjust without getting overwhelmed has been key. By having a positive attitude and pushing myself out of my comfort zone at work, I have been able to grow more confident in my abilities and know that obstacles may come my way but I can still succeed.
I have also just learned general things in regard to working with other people, like how to communicate and how to set up meetings. I’ve learned that being a good communicator means understanding your audience and adjusting your style/behavior accordingly. This ties in with holding meetings over the phone/web-ex, where I’ve seen that turning on the camera can go a long way. Being able to see someone’s face when talking to them allows you to be more engaged in the conversation, which leads to a more productive meeting for everyone involved.
A few things I’ve learned throughout my internship so far is how large corporations operate and communicate. I never worked in a company this large before with so many departments. I’ve learned that communication is key in being succesful in this kind of job because when you run into an issue you have to propertly communicate that to another department. A great example for this is while some people in IT communicate one way,others in servicing may be less experienced in technology and communicate in simpler terms when having to complete an online task.
Another thing I’ve realized that we didn’t read in textbooks is that the company culture & environment is very important in the success of a business. When you are empowered to make your own decisions rather than micromanaged, you have a greater chance of being successful in your goals. In a company with a warm learning environment, you are also brought up by the people around you, this helps motivate you to improve daily.
One thing I learned from my internship that I could not learn in the classroom is that even though UHS is a huge company with many different teams that contribute different things, we all need to work together to accomplish tasks. You may think that one team is completely unrelated to another one, but if you want to implement a change there is a huge possibility that many teams will be effected by that change. So it is crucial to communicate with one another. Communication and working in teams is something you can learn in the classroom, but to this degree is something you have to experience in the corporate world. Another thing is phone etiquette like when you are on a conference call with many people. It is important to not cut people off, but equally important to be able to get your input in there. At first, it was hard for me to interject, but sometimes it is what you need to do and I have become more comfortable with it.
Selling products in the e-commerce is the things that I could not just learn the classroom. In class, we usually study about what is digital marketing, e-commerce, how it looks like, how can we figure the strategies for it but we did not learn the real-life skills of it. As working in the Sales Analyst position, I have to deal a lot with e-commerce skills. I started learning different new skills about this area that I had not learned in class.
Business Communications helped teach us how to write emails, and create PowerPoints for a business setting, but you don’t really grasp the true importance of communication until you are in the business setting. EY uses a variety of ways to communicate. We talk to different EY departments, other Auditing Firms (ex. I currently have been in strong communication with a Deloitte team), and of course the company who you are auditing’s executives. All of these different parties have different styles of communication required and use different platforms of communication. Another important thing that I have learned was how to feel confident/comfortable with your work. I never worked in an office setting before so I am used to seeing what I do as a physically finished product. But in the office place everything’s much different. You don’t always have all the documentation from the client that you need, or the meetings are pushed around. Often you spend all day writing something out and have it reviewed, but then a more senior manager comes and tells you that they want it a totally different way. School is such a structured system with often never moving deadlines but in the workplace it seems as though nothing is really ever set in stone. Timelines are always fluctuating and being agile enough to be able to adapt to it is extremely important.
Like a lot of answers above, I agree that communication cannot be learned from a textbook. Each company has different styles of communication. At goPuff, it’s common to call each other “bro” or “fam”, and use emojis in our Slack channel. This is directly related to their young culture. It takes me a little bit of time to adjust my communication style to my coworkers since I was used to the formal Fox school style. Knowing what is appropriate and not over the line is important when your boss is only a few years younger than you.
Most of what I learn on this internship and the last were new to me, as Fox does not have a structured course in advertising or agency work. There are a few key things that can’t be learned in a classroom:
– How a particular organization works: how each person work with other members in the team; how knowledge-sharing works on Slack and other channels; and who specializes on what area, regardless of titles.
– Technical skills: an organization can use a specialized set of tools for analytics, research, and intelligence, requiring newcomers to attend training in each tool set.
– Strategic thinking: by working on real projects with real clients, I practiced approaching a problem and solving it in terms of industry and company-specific frameworks.
= Relationship management: managing expectations from colleagues and bosses; learning how to ask for advice and learn new things; and showing initiative at key moments.
– Tons of industry knowledge: after many years in operation, the organization has amassed a vast amount of past cases, best practices, and unique lessons. I learned a lot just by looking through Ogilvy’s archive of slide decks and marketing cases.
One thing I’ve learned from working at Campbells, the same thing as a lot of previous comments mentioned, is the importance of tracking and following up – taking ownership of something until it is done. Before, I was used to the thinking that as long as I do my part well, others’ parts are their responsibilities – however, working in the real world, I’ve learned that I’m also responsible for supporting others to do their parts well in order to drive a project to success.
There are many lessons that I learn during the internship that I couldn’t learn in the classroom or from a text book.
The biggest lesson is that there’s a lot more to a job than the work itself. There are other factors that determine an employee’s level of satisfaction, happiness, and success with a job. As a student, I usually think that the work is everything when it comes to choosing a job. But when I start working, I realize that there are other factors such as supervisors, team culture, company culture, client interactions, lifestyle, pay, stress level that can affect an employee’s view of a job. Through working at Deloitte, I truly experience what it feels like to work in Risk Advisory. I learn to appreciate the talented team members, caring supervisors, and cooperative clients that I have. I can see how Deloitte cares a lot about training its people. Through talking to other friends from other firms, I feel lucky to have such a flexible lifestyle working for Deloitte Advisory. Now, when I think about a job, I can look pass the job itself to evaluate these other factors that can affect my overall satisfaction with a job.
The second lesson is the importance of attitude. Before the internship, I didn’t understand why companies have to look for culture fit during the recruiting process. Now, it makes total sense. As a full-time employee, you see your colleagues more often than your spouses, friends, or family members. You work with your team. You go for meals with your team. You will spend so much time with your team. If your team members are not likeable, it’s make everything a lot more difficult. On the other hand, having a likeable co-worker can make you feel happier and more enjoyable at work. That sense of comfort can increase productivity multiple folds. I realized this lesson early on and tried to bring my most optimistic and enthusiastic self to work. During my performance meeting, my attitude was the first thing that my supervisor mentioned.
Organizational skills cant be taught in class. Everyone has different way of organizing their documents and appointments. Some use planners some use straight memory. I found simple technological tools like outlook calendar and to-do list was very important skill that came handy. Secondly, As I was in charge of managing my department’s JAM site platform is similar to a word press drag drop site. I did not learn the platform in class but fortunately SAP had plenty of tutorials or me to learn this from.
A skill that I learned during my internship and not in the classroom would be adjusting to someone working style. During my time with QVC, I had to collaborate with various people from different departments. This experience forced me to learn about their work flow and communication style to be able to work better together. Also, my internship taught me how to manage tasks that are unexpected in time-crunch situations. At times, something might come up and I would have to drop everything and direct my attention to a completely different task. This taught me how to stay calm & not panic and manage my time better when things come up.
Some lessons I learned during my internship that could not be learned in the classroom are how to be proactive, completing the steps to actually implementing an ERP system, and client communication over the phone.
Since I’m just an intern I do not have a workload of my own and am reliant on my team members to delegate work to me, so part of what I learned about being proactive is asking for work from each team member that way they were aware I had free time to help them on their projects.
As far as implementing an ERP system, we can learn theory in the classroom, but when its an actual client it is a whole new experience and how to handle the changes are a part of the lessons I have learned.
Lastly, phone calls are my biggest weakness, but a part of being a good consultant is being able to communicate effectively over the phone to the client. Good phone communication allows meetings to go quicker, the correct information gathered, and the reduction in confusion as to what needs to be done.
One of the most important lessons that I’ve learned from being in the workplace is to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. As someone who likes the organized structure of classes with syllabi and set due dates for assignments, understanding that the environment of the workplace is ever-changing is so important. Deadlines change, meetings will get re-scheduled, or things may just not go according to plan, and understanding how to adapt/adjust without getting overwhelmed has been key. By having a positive attitude and pushing myself out of my comfort zone at work, I have been able to grow more confident in my abilities and know that obstacles may come my way but I can still succeed.
I have also just learned general things in regard to working with other people, like how to communicate and how to set up meetings. I’ve learned that being a good communicator means understanding your audience and adjusting your style/behavior accordingly. This ties in with holding meetings over the phone/web-ex, where I’ve seen that turning on the camera can go a long way. Being able to see someone’s face when talking to them allows you to be more engaged in the conversation, which leads to a more productive meeting for everyone involved.
Couldn’t agree more with being comfortable with being uncomfortable. It feels like almost everyday half of my calendar is rearranged.
A few things I’ve learned throughout my internship so far is how large corporations operate and communicate. I never worked in a company this large before with so many departments. I’ve learned that communication is key in being succesful in this kind of job because when you run into an issue you have to propertly communicate that to another department. A great example for this is while some people in IT communicate one way,others in servicing may be less experienced in technology and communicate in simpler terms when having to complete an online task.
Another thing I’ve realized that we didn’t read in textbooks is that the company culture & environment is very important in the success of a business. When you are empowered to make your own decisions rather than micromanaged, you have a greater chance of being successful in your goals. In a company with a warm learning environment, you are also brought up by the people around you, this helps motivate you to improve daily.
One thing I learned from my internship that I could not learn in the classroom is that even though UHS is a huge company with many different teams that contribute different things, we all need to work together to accomplish tasks. You may think that one team is completely unrelated to another one, but if you want to implement a change there is a huge possibility that many teams will be effected by that change. So it is crucial to communicate with one another. Communication and working in teams is something you can learn in the classroom, but to this degree is something you have to experience in the corporate world. Another thing is phone etiquette like when you are on a conference call with many people. It is important to not cut people off, but equally important to be able to get your input in there. At first, it was hard for me to interject, but sometimes it is what you need to do and I have become more comfortable with it.
Selling products in the e-commerce is the things that I could not just learn the classroom. In class, we usually study about what is digital marketing, e-commerce, how it looks like, how can we figure the strategies for it but we did not learn the real-life skills of it. As working in the Sales Analyst position, I have to deal a lot with e-commerce skills. I started learning different new skills about this area that I had not learned in class.
Business Communications helped teach us how to write emails, and create PowerPoints for a business setting, but you don’t really grasp the true importance of communication until you are in the business setting. EY uses a variety of ways to communicate. We talk to different EY departments, other Auditing Firms (ex. I currently have been in strong communication with a Deloitte team), and of course the company who you are auditing’s executives. All of these different parties have different styles of communication required and use different platforms of communication. Another important thing that I have learned was how to feel confident/comfortable with your work. I never worked in an office setting before so I am used to seeing what I do as a physically finished product. But in the office place everything’s much different. You don’t always have all the documentation from the client that you need, or the meetings are pushed around. Often you spend all day writing something out and have it reviewed, but then a more senior manager comes and tells you that they want it a totally different way. School is such a structured system with often never moving deadlines but in the workplace it seems as though nothing is really ever set in stone. Timelines are always fluctuating and being agile enough to be able to adapt to it is extremely important.
Like a lot of answers above, I agree that communication cannot be learned from a textbook. Each company has different styles of communication. At goPuff, it’s common to call each other “bro” or “fam”, and use emojis in our Slack channel. This is directly related to their young culture. It takes me a little bit of time to adjust my communication style to my coworkers since I was used to the formal Fox school style. Knowing what is appropriate and not over the line is important when your boss is only a few years younger than you.
Most of what I learn on this internship and the last were new to me, as Fox does not have a structured course in advertising or agency work. There are a few key things that can’t be learned in a classroom:
– How a particular organization works: how each person work with other members in the team; how knowledge-sharing works on Slack and other channels; and who specializes on what area, regardless of titles.
– Technical skills: an organization can use a specialized set of tools for analytics, research, and intelligence, requiring newcomers to attend training in each tool set.
– Strategic thinking: by working on real projects with real clients, I practiced approaching a problem and solving it in terms of industry and company-specific frameworks.
= Relationship management: managing expectations from colleagues and bosses; learning how to ask for advice and learn new things; and showing initiative at key moments.
– Tons of industry knowledge: after many years in operation, the organization has amassed a vast amount of past cases, best practices, and unique lessons. I learned a lot just by looking through Ogilvy’s archive of slide decks and marketing cases.
One thing I’ve learned from working at Campbells, the same thing as a lot of previous comments mentioned, is the importance of tracking and following up – taking ownership of something until it is done. Before, I was used to the thinking that as long as I do my part well, others’ parts are their responsibilities – however, working in the real world, I’ve learned that I’m also responsible for supporting others to do their parts well in order to drive a project to success.
There are many lessons that I learn during the internship that I couldn’t learn in the classroom or from a text book.
The biggest lesson is that there’s a lot more to a job than the work itself. There are other factors that determine an employee’s level of satisfaction, happiness, and success with a job. As a student, I usually think that the work is everything when it comes to choosing a job. But when I start working, I realize that there are other factors such as supervisors, team culture, company culture, client interactions, lifestyle, pay, stress level that can affect an employee’s view of a job. Through working at Deloitte, I truly experience what it feels like to work in Risk Advisory. I learn to appreciate the talented team members, caring supervisors, and cooperative clients that I have. I can see how Deloitte cares a lot about training its people. Through talking to other friends from other firms, I feel lucky to have such a flexible lifestyle working for Deloitte Advisory. Now, when I think about a job, I can look pass the job itself to evaluate these other factors that can affect my overall satisfaction with a job.
The second lesson is the importance of attitude. Before the internship, I didn’t understand why companies have to look for culture fit during the recruiting process. Now, it makes total sense. As a full-time employee, you see your colleagues more often than your spouses, friends, or family members. You work with your team. You go for meals with your team. You will spend so much time with your team. If your team members are not likeable, it’s make everything a lot more difficult. On the other hand, having a likeable co-worker can make you feel happier and more enjoyable at work. That sense of comfort can increase productivity multiple folds. I realized this lesson early on and tried to bring my most optimistic and enthusiastic self to work. During my performance meeting, my attitude was the first thing that my supervisor mentioned.
Organizational skills cant be taught in class. Everyone has different way of organizing their documents and appointments. Some use planners some use straight memory. I found simple technological tools like outlook calendar and to-do list was very important skill that came handy. Secondly, As I was in charge of managing my department’s JAM site platform is similar to a word press drag drop site. I did not learn the platform in class but fortunately SAP had plenty of tutorials or me to learn this from.
A skill that I learned during my internship and not in the classroom would be adjusting to someone working style. During my time with QVC, I had to collaborate with various people from different departments. This experience forced me to learn about their work flow and communication style to be able to work better together. Also, my internship taught me how to manage tasks that are unexpected in time-crunch situations. At times, something might come up and I would have to drop everything and direct my attention to a completely different task. This taught me how to stay calm & not panic and manage my time better when things come up.