Just a few thought's from my last week...
My supervisor was not actually in the office for my final day of prac and sadly this was both disappointing and made things much more difficult. I only had a few projects left to finish up but without her final go ahead I wasn't able to finish off the articles and upload them to their respective websites without her approval. I had also had problems getting earlier approval for the same projects as I had another consultant decide that another angle would be more appropriate, which then came with more delays and conflicting opinions and I was left with no change to my in- and out-trays (as empty as they have been the entire placement). Having two different supervisors for the same project just made things so much more complicated and unfortunatley an inefficient use of my time (not to mention their free staff resources).
And so my last day consisted of more spreadsheet work (Googling companies for contact details...) and cleaning up my desktop. Thankfully though I did have the freelance consultant come in, who I had previously only met once, who was, in short, breath of fresh air. She was so positive and genuinely interested in my goals and what I had been doing and actually gave me some feedback on my work. Apparently only the day before she had been talking to my supervisor and head of the studio who both had commented on what a fanstastic impression I had made during my internship; particularly as I always used my own initiative to fill up my time as they were always too busy to sit down and go through anything with me (a bitter-sweet point I have to say - "Yay!" they liked me, "Boo!" they didn't realise I just didn't complain when I had to disguise the fact that I was basically twiddling my thumbs all day).
I can honestly say I nearly fell off my chair with relief! But at the same time I was puzzled by why it should have taken until my last day to receive any feedback on my work and capabilities; a feeling that was mutual with the freelancer who was thoroughly displeased that it had taken so long to let me know I had done the extreme opposite of what I had thought I was doing (making a horrible impression...)! I know that many of you have probably shared some of these difficulties and I know that it is possible to be diplomatic and ask politely for more work or to be more involved in some projects, but in my case this didn't really work. I all too well understand that it is hard to delegate work to another person, particularly a part-time newbie but it would be nice if our placement supervisors had a bit more faith in the capabilities of the new practitioners. Our ideas are fresh, the theory is also new in our minds and we have hundreds of case-studies in our knowledge banks of what to do and what not to do in different situations (a point demonstrated by the fact that my supervisor had never even heard about Eurodisney, I mean, come on! I could recite that case in my sleep!).
Perhaps I should have been more assertive in what I wanted from the placement or maybe I should have tried to establish some mutual goals with my supervisor in the first palce... what do you guys think? Have you had similar experiences and how did you get through/fix it? Hopefully the next lot of interns will read our blogs and be able to plan their placements more effectively than I did...
1 comment:
I can certainly see how your last day would be frustrating. I think that is one of the negatives in working under someone, particularly in a student/work experience position - we are often overlooked or not taken seriously and in some cases looked at as a bit of a nuisance, or at least it can seem that way to us.
I had a similar experience where I wasn't really given a lot of feedback as to what I was doing right or wrong which did result in my feelings of being lost and having no direction.
I would agree that it is essential that you are assertive in trying to communicate what you would like to get out of your internship, but I also think sometimes its difficult to be able to get everything you want without sounding like some sort of diva. I think the way you handled your internship, from the sounds of it, was a very good approach.
You did what was asked of you and did more by showing initiative - that is the best possible impression you could make especially as an intern. It shows resourcefulness and that you actually want to be there.
Sounds like you really did learn a lot from your internship and made some good contacts while you were doing it. I wish you the best of luck in your future career.
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