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Scoopz' College Life Take 2 + ADHD & Anxiety: Endless Grab Bag of Fun

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Urist McScoopbeard:
Nyello,

Let me give it to you straight. I'm sending a semester in a different city as part of a university program. My internship has ended up being, not terrible, but very lackluster.

It seems to me that my office isn't really in need of interns, and while I understand odds and ends and busywork IS the life of an intern I also expect opportunities to learn and follow people whose jobs are similar to my own qualification. That has not been the case. It is early days, but so far everything is fairly close-doored and everyone seems to be quite content to do their work alone. I am essentially a secretary's assistant, which was not really what was advertised at all.

So, I'm not really sure if I'm being a little bitch and I should just suck it up? Or if I should start looking for somewhere else while there's still feasibly a couple of weeks where I could land something else? I don't know, my internship supervisor is pretty chill and not overly attached to the company, but I feel like there's basically nothing she can do if I were to bring my concerns to her.

Any ideas?

EDIT: And yes, if you are curious, I passed over several now much-better internships to pursue this one and I feel like a huge idiot.

EDIT2: More details: It's unpaid, and I'm paying a bunch to be out here.

tl;dr I love writing, hate the entertainment industry. Too stressed out, need something a little slower-paced. Go to latest page for more details.

nenjin:
Well I think as an unpaid intern, you have to push to get yourself included in things that will be educational for you. It's nice when a business goes out of its way to find something for you to do and learn from, but my feeling is most businesses require interns to define and demand their own level of involvement.

Teaching people takes time, which is why most paid employees aren't going to offer up a learning opportunity.

You should request stuff like:

-Can I quietly sit in on meetings and absorb what's being said?
-Can I sit in quietly on phone calls with clients so I can see what business/client interactions look like in a professional workplace?
-Can I be given anyone else's lower level work that actually pertains to the company's business and isn't like, photocopying stuff or grabbing people coffee?

And definitely start looking for other internships, especially ones that heavily promote practical experience as part of the deal. You can have two types of companies: ones that need staff and ones that don't really.

The ones that need staff and are willing to let interns take on some of the work load are the places where you can end up with more work than you're comfortable with. Businesses that don't need staff may offer internships as part of a talent hunting operation, cooperation with universities because those relationships look good and can be beneficial, or straight up because they like having unpaid labor around to dump trivial BS on so it doesn't cost their hourly/salary employees valuable time.

What's the industry, anyways? Depending on the kind of industry you're in, situations for interns may be very different than in another kind of industry.

Urist McScoopbeard:
Entertainment Industry, so it's quite rocky for interns. And I am starting to get a very bad feeling about my continued chances of employment here.

Urist McScoopbeard:
Shit, I've just had a long conversation with my internship supervisor about the expectations for this internship and honestly, it's looking like I will be parting ways with the company, it seems that this really wasn't what I thought it was. Hoodwinked, I suppose.

nenjin:

--- Quote from: Urist McScoopbeard on January 18, 2018, 04:02:07 pm ---Entertainment Industry, so it's quite rocky for interns. And I am starting to get a very bad feeling about my continued chances of employment here.

--- End quote ---

Oof. Good luck. If this were tech I'm sure there are about 100 things any given tech company could find you to do that would give you some job experience. Entertainment industry though, I'm sure, is a wholly different ball game.


--- Quote from: Urist McScoopbeard on January 18, 2018, 04:38:51 pm ---Shit, I've just had a long conversation with my internship supervisor about the expectations for this internship and honestly, it's looking like I will be parting ways with the company, it seems that this really wasn't what I thought it was. Hoodwinked, I suppose.

--- End quote ---

Curious what he said to you.

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