When I went up on stage to accept my college degree after five years of post-secondary education, I was hit by a whirlwind of memories \u2013 there were so many important milestones that took place over the course of those years. However, if I had to look back and pinpoint my proudest career moment to-date, it would have to be taking time off from university to complete my two internships. Doing so opened my eyes and helped me understand how the materials I studied in textbooks applied to the real working world. It also opened doors for me that otherwise may have been closed.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve been wondering what you might get out of doing an internship, here is a first-hand account of how interning helped me jump-start my career.<\/p>\n
It gave me a taste of the real world <\/strong><\/p>\n The time spent working on projects with classmates, while helpful, was nothing compared to what I experienced in an actual work environment. I recognized significant gaps between the contrived spaces of a classroom and what I was doing \u2013 and in reality, I saw how much work is involved in any given project. For instance, preparing a simple piece of written material for the marketing team led me to work with multiple stakeholders, including ad agencies and the legal team, from briefs to campaign deployment and post-launch measurement. It allowed me to approach tasks in a way I wouldn\u2019t have thought of had I not done an internship \u2013 this is something I carry with me to this day in my current job.<\/p>\n Plus, I realized that whatever I worked on as intern actually had an impact on the company\u2019s bottom line, which gave me a huge sense of pride.<\/p>\n I met many new people and started building my network<\/strong><\/p>\n Throughout my internships I was lucky to have great people supporting me. While I gained a variety of experiences and skills, I think the impact of having the opportunity to learn from a seasoned professional gave me someone to look up to and a goal to work towards. It instilled a work ethic in me of wanting to go above and beyond of what was required.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a common saying, \u201cIt\u2019s not what you know, but who you know,\u201d and cultivating those connections in your internship before graduating can help set you up to get a job you\u2019ll love down the line. Not only that, but by making a positive impression while interning, you\u2019re building your own brand, and people will remember the kind of person you are\u2013 this is a quality that will be very useful down the road when looking for references or asking for recommendations on your LinkedIn profile.<\/p>\n I knew what I wanted to do after graduation<\/strong><\/p>\n Doing an internship exposed me to many different aspects in my field of study. It helped me realize the areas I excelled at and those I needed to develop more. I was able to try out new tools, learn new skills along the way and leverage my mistakes to motivate me to improve.<\/p>\n Furthermore, I realized what I wanted to do in the long term and, above all, what I did NOT want to do with my life. Interning helped me discover a career path I was passionate about \u2013 and one that would give me the chance to learn and grow within a company.<\/p>\n I gained the confidence to secure my first full-time job<\/strong><\/p>\n After ten months of testing myself in a real-world working environment, I had grown both as an employee and an individual. By the end, I had the confidence to propose new ideas \u2013 my ideas \u2013 for major campaigns to go out into market. I also gave presentations to large groups of people. But most of all, I had the experience needed to secure my first full-time job. A recent survey<\/a> by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found that 95 per cent of employers considered a candidate\u2019s experience to weigh in on their hiring decisions. Ultimately, completing an internship gave me an edge over others who didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n In a recent article<\/a>, Dina Vardouniotis, Vice-President and General Manager at JP Morgan Chase, shared the best advice she ever received: \u201cDon\u2019t worry if it\u2019s the right job until you get it.\u201d As millennials, we all go through a little FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out<\/a>), so taking a shot at that internship might just be the best decision you ever make.<\/p>\n When I went up on stage to accept my college degree after five years of post-secondary education, I was hit by a whirlwind of memories \u2013 there were so many important milestones that took place over the course of those years. However, if I had to look back and pinpoint my proudest career moment to-date, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24],"tags":[21,25,26],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverypublisher.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverypublisher.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverypublisher.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverypublisher.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverypublisher.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverypublisher.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverypublisher.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/72"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverypublisher.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverypublisher.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.discoverypublisher.com\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Credits: Monster Canada<\/a><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"