At the beginning of my junior year, my one professor told me something that stuck with me for the duration of my internship and beyond. He told me that one of the frequent reports he hears from supervisors of Cabrini student interns is that there is a lack of incentive. He said many reported the interns would show up, do their work, and go home. There was no attending meetings (unless otherwise directed), no suggestion of new models, and no showing off his or her skills by doing work beyond what was asked. There was nothing that set said intern apart from the others.
I took this and immediately applied it to my internship. For the duration of my junior year I was the social media intern at a career services office. From the day he told me that, I did my best to let my supervisor know that just because my internship job included A, B, and C, that doesn’t mean that I can’t also work on D and E as well. By doing this, halfway through my internship my supervisor allowed me to start coming up with my own ideas for how to improve the office.
This is something easy that any major can do during an internship. Take what is expected of you and add on one extra thing to do. Make this something that you can pitch to your supervisor as an added skill you would love to use. Chances are your supervisor will give you the chance.
For me, I pitched creating a student newsletter based off of the work I was already doing to create a faculty newsletter. I also pitched the idea of creating a recruitment video to show students that on-campus internships are a great option. Both of these were approved by my supervisor and loved by the whole office.
Another thing you can do to set yourself apart at your internship is to do research in whatever field you’re working in. I frequently did research on trends which I then presented to my supervisor as a way to alter our strategy to stay up-to-date with trends. This will show that you take your internship seriously, which, in return, can help land you a job afterward.
By demonstrating to professionals that you can offer even more services during your internship than expected, and by taking the time to follow trends and thought-leaders in that field, you will ace your internship.