An Intern’s Survival Guide: Chapter Four

An Intern’s Survival Guide: Chapter Four was originally published on Firsthand.

Navigating Your Next?

Hear from the interns from the World's Best Internship

 

 

The world is a changed place today because our experiences have become different. These different experiences, in turn, are slowly shaping our lives. Our past articles briefly touched upon facets of this changing world and gave you a few tips about surviving your internship. We looked into what prospective interns can do to build their launchpad, why global companies in the 2020s are important for our future opportunities, and how interns can find a healthy work lifestyle.

The InStep program of Infosys has been recognized as the best internship in the world by Vault.com for the past 3 consecutive years. Every year till 2019, the interns packed up and arrived in Bangalore to experience one of the most unique summers of their lives in India. The batch of 2020 and 2021 however, are experiencing the uniqueness virtually.

“It’s all about learning”

As Ioana rightly put it, internships are all about learning – learning about yourself, about your own style of decision making, your work preferences, and the most important being the domain you want to be a part of. This is your first stop into the industry that is constantly growing and changing. It's also a deep dive into the work and work culture at large organizations. Robin echoes the same emotion as Ioana and adds that, “interning is a great way to be a part of something bigger in a short span of time.”

“It all comes from asking questions”

Asking the right question is an art! Because as Ebere and Robin agree, you learn and network by asking questions. It's important to ask about yourself, about the good and the bad things during the internship, the learnings you were able to take from it, and the people who inspired you to fulfill your career aspirations.

As Robin suggests, who else could be better for asking questions than your workplace mentor and your fellow interns? Your mentor can best navigate you on how the projects can be made more efficient and how you can learn the most through this 8 to 12-week process. And who better than your fellow interns to talk about goals, aspirations, and inspirations.

“We made an amazing team”

Robin fondly remembers how the yearly hackathon, InStepHacks, brought people together as a team, while Drew remembers his winning streak–made possible using the individual strengths of his team that gave birth to their amazing design concept.

“But, how was your virtual internship experience?”

Right from making amazing friends to feeling like a part of a family – hear our interns speak about their first-ever virtual internship experience.

The world of InStep is filled with thousands of dreams and aspirations from the brilliant minds that come to InStep. This has been the fuel behind InStep's 22 successful summers and the hope for years to come!

This post is sponsored by Infosys. Infosys InStep is Vault’s Best Internship of 2021. This internship program also ranks No. 1 across many of our Best Internships of 2021 categories, including Best Internships for Diversity, Diversity with Respect to Women, LGBTQ+ Diversity, Racial & Ethnic Diversity, Quality of Life, Compensation & Benefits, Computer Science, and more. For a complete list of the program’s rankings, visit the Infosys Instep Vault profile.

By Firsthand
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