As I was pondering what my internship should be, I decided that I wanted to direct it towards a business aspect. I had a few options, but I ultimately decided on an internship at the Minit Stop Headquarters. It was a perfect opportunity. Working with a corporation as big as Minit Stop was a fantastic way to experience a professional business environment.
Luckily, once I started my internship I had plenty of people to mentor me, but I had two main ones. Jared, the manager, would bring me into meetings and tell me about the business, and Lia, who worked at the office, assigned, explained, and assisted me with my tasks. They helped me fit in right away, and even gave me my own cubicle to work in. Lia had plenty of things for me to do, so I came in almost every day for a little over two weeks, and that was enough to get in sixty hours worth of time.
What ended up taking the vast majority of my time at my internship was grunt work. My tasks varied, but what most of them had in common was that they were repetitive and relatively simple. For example, one of my main tasks was to put together new safety binders for every Minit Stop store. I had to print papers, put them in page protectors, and organize hundreds of them into a single binder. After the first time, it wasn’t too difficult, just repetitive. Many other tasks, like cutting or laminating papers, rolling posters, or office organization were similar in this idea. Just like in the real world, or in real office spaces, some projects can be tedious, but that's something you have to accept and persevere through.
Grunt work wasn’t all I did though. I was able to attend a business meeting or two as a spectator into the world of business. One meeting was about the company’s shortage of employees, and what they could do to fix that problem. Even though I couldn’t give input, it was insightful to see what strategies experienced managers implemented to keep the business running smoothly. I also visited Minit Stop stores on a few different occasions. I was able to go into the back rooms of the stores and see what kept them running, as well as the amount of work and employees needed for various jobs. This whole experience gave me a great perspective into what really happens in a professional setting, and gaining that knowledge was my biggest takeaway from the internship.
Additionally, my involvement within this company has helped me develop a few of my 21st Century Skills. First and foremost, Financial, Economic, and Business Literacy. There aren't many opportunities in school to develop this skill, so my internship was very helpful in that regard. As mentioned before, looking into and understanding what runs a business was one of the main things I learned, and this fits perfectly under the Financial, Economic, and Business Literacy Skill.
Other than that, Interpersonal skills were extremely important for this internship. When working in an office with many other people, especially when you're new to the job, it is important to communicate effectively with others to get things done effectively and efficiently, and avoid any confusion.
Lastly, Self-Directional skills were definitely used. Even though most of my tasks were somewhat simple, I was doing almost everything alone and I still had to figure some things out for myself. I also had to set up this internship in the first place which uses this 21st Century Skill as well.
Though my internship was tedious at some points, overall it was still close to what I had hoped for. My original goal for this internship was to experience a real business environment, and learn important topics of discussion though meetings, and that's essentially what happened. There was a bit more grunt work than I expected, but even that was a valuable experience.
The hardest part of my internship was staying engaged in some of the work. For hours at a time, I could be doing the same task over and over again, which would become increasingly dull. Luckily, I was able to listen to something on my phone as I was doing a lot of these tasks which made the whole process much easier. Though it was repetitive, it was still a valuable experience, and it gave me an idea of what many people have to do in offices all day. All things considered, I believe that my internship taught me a practical lesson that is likely to become relevant in my post-highschool life. My experiences will come into use if I work in some type of office at some point in the future, and even if I don’t, there are many other lessons and skills I learned. Working together with others is important no matter what career you go into, and since I plan to run a business someday, observing the effective business strategies that were used is a bit of knowledge that could come into use in the future. Overall, this internship was extremely beneficial, and most importantly, insightful.