Rachel’s post yesterday focused on the importance of building strong mentor-mentee relationships, and while I agree that it is one of the most beneficial parts of this internship, I have also found that our intern class relationship has played a large part in my experience at LS. Coming into this program, I knew there would be six to eight other interns on the team with whom I would be working. I knew we would all be coming from different schools with different past internships and different expertise. In such a competitive industry, I figured it would take some time for us to all get along because we’d be sizing each other up. That never happened.
From the first day on the job, we all started talking like we all went to college together. We sat around for an hour sharing about our past jobs and our different school programs. In the five weeks since then our group has only grown stronger. We laugh together, fight each other on ideas, and give each other a hard time when we make fools of ourselves. We have each other’s backs on the bad days, and we congratulate each other on the good days. It is so great to come into work everyday and know that my coworkers are not just people who I sit next to, but also my friends.
On a more professional level, becoming close with the intern class has allowed me insight into their strengths. I know I can value their opinions when I am working on something, and they will let me know if my Ham Day design actually looks like a ham sandwich. We don’t sugar coat things around here, and no one gets offended if their idea gets booted out. Through getting to know one another, we have also realized the value of networking. Even though we are still in college, the importance of making connections still holds. We have already decided that Rachel knows someone in every industry, so we will all be keeping her as a Friend on Facebook. Also, since we are all in similar programs at our various schools, we can compare what our education has taught us. Being able to see the strengths of other school’s programs allows us to see what things we should improve on individually, to make us stronger employees.
Most importantly getting along well with your other interns makes this job that much more fun. It is great to be able to have lunch together and escape the agency world for just an hour. Its good to know there are others going through the same steps as you are, and we are all doing it together. Who knows. Maybe some of us will work together at agencies in a few years.
Abie M.
Graphic Design Intern
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