What are the most important skills (business/technical) and people that you have discovered in your internship? Is there a skill that you didn’t have before but realize that you absolutely need? Is there a person that you discovered that you definitely want on your side (besides your boss of course)?
Aaroush Bhanot says
The most important skill I have improved on this role is communication. My role is to lead a project for an intranet site for the department and I realised that it is extremely important to communicate with the team and decision makers as the project progresses. Secondly, while planning a list of stakeholders for a project, it is important to only include representatives of the department that are decision makers to smoothen the flow of the project and avoid delays. One skill I did not have that I’m learning this Summer is to forecast your work and make changes in your plan and action items every day. I discovered that the one person I always need on my side is the Project Sponsor. She is the final decision maker and everyone on the team highly values her decisions.
Shane Ferrell says
A skill that I’ve found to be very important at my internship is the ability to take notes during virtual meetings. Unlike class lectures, there often aren’t powerpoint slides telling you exactly what you need to know, and you have to discern what’s important to learn. If there’s an unfamiliar term or concept during the meeting, I’ll usually write it down to ask my team members later rather than disrupt the meeting by asking then.
As far as people I want to have on my side, it would be definitely have to be my team members on the product team. In order to get up to speed, I’ve been shadowing them and asking questions whenever I have the opportunity to, and this has helped me tremendously during my first few weeks. I’ve found that as an intern, it’s better to show genuine curiosity in people and their work rather than trying to impress them with what I know.