If you’ve ever been a summer intern, you know how real the struggle can be. Between mastering the coffee maker, making it through your first meeting, and keeping it together when your desk phone rings — sacrificing your summer for work experience can be all kinds of stressful. Rewarding, yes, but mostly stressful. Below, the 11 stages of being a summer intern, from start to finish:

1. 11 Truths All Interns Have To Accept To
Get the Most Out Of the Job
In today’s world, a college degree has the equivalent
value of a high school diploma 20 years ago. It seems like
everyone goes to college. Why not? It seems like a blast;
it’s a rite of passage; it’s the best four years of your life,
and it’s the one last hoorah of your youth until the
dreaded real world starts.
I never got the real college experience. For the most part,
that’s because I didn’t really want one. I couldn’t have
been readier for the real world since the day I walked on
campus. The parties, the sororities, the clubs and dorms
— none of that excited me.
I knew if I took part in the typical college experience,
when I walked across a stage in my cap and gown four
years later, I would be on the same playing field as the
thousands of new graduates around me.
But I didn’t want that.
Too many college graduates I knew were still waiting
tables or filing papers, even years after the student loan
payments started. They went to college, graduated and
expected to get these amazing job offers, but hadn’t

2. even landed one interview. All that time and money
didn’t do anything for them; they were on their own and
had no idea what to do.
I wanted to be ahead of the curve. I had an ambition that
made sitting in a lecture hall torturous for me. So the
first thing I did after settling in on campus was find
myself an internship.
Here are 11 lessons I’ve learned from being a long-time
intern:
1. A lot of internships are free labor for companies. It’s
up to you to decide if it’s worth it.
I did not have a car during my first semester of college. I
lived right next to campus and could walk everywhere I
needed to go, so my parents didn’t see the importance of
me having one right away. So when I got an internship at
the Charlotte Motor Speedway a few miles away from
my apartment, it made things difficult. What made things
even worse was the position required eight hours of
work, three days a week, at absolutely no pay other
than a stipend at the end of the term. But, I made it
work.
I took a taxi some days, bribed my roommate with free
food to drive me on others and eventually guilted co-

3. workers into picking me up. Thinking back on it now, I
don’t know how, but I did it, on top of 15-credit hours
during my first semester of college.
If it hadn’t been for a few kind-hearted people on the
staff offering me paid hours to work events after my
internship day was over, I don’t know how I would have
afforded my life. It wasn’t easy, but I was convinced it
would be worth it, so I chose to do it anyway.
2. Interns are often disposable, but it doesn’t mean you
aren’t a valuable professional.
I was heartbroken when my first internship ended. I
thought for sure that all my hard work, eagerness to do
even more work and positive attitude would have given
the company reason to keep me around. But when the
end of my internship period came, I returned my access
badge.
I realize it was crazy for me to think they would have
hired a college freshman right away, but I actually did
think that was going to happen. Everyone kept telling me
that the best part of internships was many of them
turned into full-time jobs.
So, why couldn’t mine become one? When it didn’t
happen, I was devastated. I felt like all that work had

4. been for nothing. But in the following weeks, I realized
that though I enjoyed my time there, that type of work
wasn’t really what I saw myself doing forever anyway. It
would be more beneficial for me to find a new internship
more relevant to my interests
3. Internships are about testing the waters of particular
fields of work and it’s important to figure out what
careers you are and aren’t interested in.
I quickly gathered my pride and went in search of
another internship. I was majoring in public relations, so I
wanted to find something in that field as opposed to
sales, which was my previous internship. It didn’t even
take me two weeks to find my next opportunity.
This new internship (with a company I will leave
unnamed) was a ton more work and more time-
consuming, but I was just excited it was paid. It wasn’t
much, but at least it was something.
The problem was this company made me does the job of
a full-time public relations representative for not just
one, but three different clients. My employer was making
out like a bandit getting so much free work for very little
money by slapping the “internship” title on it.

5. 4. Be cautious of how much advantage is being taken of
you.
Luckily, it didn’t take long for me to figure out I was being
used. I was lucky enough to know some public relations
representatives and was able to compare the work I was
doing with their workloads. Every single one of them
cautioned me to stick to my job description. The problem
was, I didn’t have one.
Upon confronting my boss, I was fed a strongly-worded
raging lecture on respecting authority and being
appreciative, then was suggested I find employment
elsewhere. Though I had experienced another heartbreak
professionally, I reminded myself that every learning
experience was valuable and chalked it up to another
well-learned lesson.
But, it did feel good when I found out this company
folded a few months later.
5. There are such things as jobs that add more value to
your life than any salary they could pay you.
Where I wound up next was interning for a company that
changed my perspective on the professional world
entirely. I was offered an opportunity to be the social
media intern for a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race team. I

6. knew right away that it would be the opportunity of a
lifetime, but I had no way of knowing just how much that
job was going to benefit my life.
What was supposed to be a summer internship ended up
continuing on for nearly two years? On top of being an
invaluable learning experience, it really was the most fun
I have ever had working.
I was able to travel the country and went to Sonoma,
California, Daytona Beach, Florida and Phoenix, Arizona. I
worked directly with successful professional athletes,
documenting moments of their careers that would leave
a mark on history. I took part in meetings and
presentations with some of the largest and most
successful companies in world. I met and interacted with
hundreds of fascinating people who followed the team’s
social media accounts. It gave me motivation to provide
them with the very best content I could, and it made me
really love my job.
Not every moment was perfect. I still made my rookie
mistakes, got frustrated at times and had to do some
daunting tasks I would rather not have done. But every
morning, I woke up genuinely wanting to go to work. The
good moments outweighed any slightly bad ones.

7. They became more than just my employers; they were
my family. But unfortunately, I began taking it for
granted
6. Money is important, but don’t let its monetary value
diminish the value of other things that matter to you.
After a year and a half as the social media intern for this
race team, I was starting to feel jaded. My
responsibilities had definitely increased since I started,
but my pay had not. I became more involved with my
colleagues in the NASCAR industry and watched as they
got promotions, salary raises and opportunities. I began
to desire even more.
I knew the amount of work I was doing was not much
less than what they were doing, so why wasn’t I
being offered a full-time job? I began to let my ambition
and eagerness take a negative turn toward entitlement
and cockiness.
7. Don’t let positive steps toward your goal convince
you that you can skip over other important
responsibilities.
I cut back even more on hours at school, convincing
myself that the more time I dedicated to my internship,

8. the more likely they would move me into a full-time
position. So, where I was focusing on the assumption
that my hard work would pay off, I was putting off
getting my degree. Unfortunately, the recognition I
hoped for was not there. Any hints I thought I was
dropping toward wanting a full-time position were being
ignored.
As time went on, I became convinced that no matter how
many hours I worked or how much responsibility I took
on, my employers were not going to raise my title or my
pay. But even more so, I convinced myself that I
deserved that to happen. I was scared of being taken
advantage of again, so I started looking for other
opportunities elsewhere.
Things were good, and I was on the right track, but it’s
amazing how quickly a few accomplishments can give
you a falsely based ego.
8. Ambition is a great quality, but it can be a weakness.
I walked away from the best thing I had going for myself
because I let my ambition get the best of me. In
retrospect, I quickly realized how greedy of a mistake I
had made. Had I not chosen to leave that internship, I
highly doubt I would have been asked to. I could have
continued that great opportunity until I completed my

9. degree. Then, maybe I would have deserved that full-
time job I was after.
Looking back now, I totally lost sight of
the responsibilities I needed to focus on to get me where
I wanted to go. Soon, the focus became entirely on
career opportunities and gradually less on school until I
reached a point where I was only taking six credit hours
at a time.
9. All of the internships in the world cannot make up for
a college degree.
I could go on and on for hours about how completely
ridiculous the value society puts on college degrees really
is. To me, it’s a money-making machine that thrives off
the population of young adults who either have the
financial means to afford college or the lack of
knowledge to know how much it is really going to cost
them.
In my opinion, what college actually does for students is
nowhere near the amount of money it actually costs. I
became resentful toward the “higher education
industry,” as I called it, and went on a mission to prove I
could get a job without that expensive piece of
paper. Three more internships later, I didn’t and I won’t

10. 10. David (the intern) doesn’t always beat Goliath (the
real world), but that doesn’t mean there isn’t reward in
going to battle anyway.
Unfortunately, I learned a hard lesson here. I’m not going
to change the importance society has put on a college
degree. Yes, internships are valuable, but they don’t give
you a leg-up on the competition unless it’s paired with a
cap and gown. If I’m not willing to change my career
goals, I will have to go back to college.
The good news is I’m only a year from graduating. But
the bad news is I have found myself in a set of
uncontrollable circumstances that are making it very
difficult for my family and I to pay for me to finish. I have
moments when the stress of it all makes me angry over
how so many people have to make money to afford to go
to college, but can’t get good jobs because they aren’t
finished college.
It can be a lose-lose situation. Even so, I’m not letting
everything I’ve done so far go to waste.

11. 11. There really is no surefire way to land that dream
job.
You can get the internships, but you’ll probably struggle
to afford ramen noodles for every meal. You can get your
degree, but you may still wind up doing a ridiculous
amount work for minimal pay for a couple years. No
matter what route you take, the real world is about
learning who you are.
My path has been difficult and financially straining, but
valuable nonetheless. I learned more about myself by
taking these crazy chances than anything I would have
learned in a lecture hall. The mistakes you make in this
quarter-life time period are just as important as the
accomplishments.
Sometimes it won’t be easy to convince yourself of it, but
hard work always has some type of reward, even if it’s
just about feeling good about you. My advice is to go to
college and pick a major that won’t bore you to death for
four years. Whether or not it’s the career path you want,
the goal is to graduate, and you’re going to need to stay
interested.
Take at least one internship, preferably two, and don’t
have any expectations of them besides learning. It may

12. be awful, or it may be a dream comes true. It may turn
into a full-time job, or it may not. Focus on enjoying the
experience, and don’t lose sight of your responsibilities.
But more than anything, don’t let even the biggest
setbacks outweigh the work you’ve put into the life
you’re building for yourself. In the real world, there are
so many unanticipated things that will throw you off
whatever plan you may have for yourself. Maybe you
won’t get that job offer; maybe you’ll invest in a
company that makes you billions of dollars, or maybe
you’ll find yourself in a financial crisis you have to dig
your way out of. Maybe you don’t get in to that medical
school you’ve always had your sights set on, or maybe
you will and you’ll realize you hate it.
That’s what the real world is — totally out of your
control. If college is about preparing you for the real
world, it’s better for you to find that out sooner than
later.
You have to make money, but you also need to focus on
living a happy life. Never settle until you have found a
way to do both, even if it takes longer than expected.
Source- elitedaily.com

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