As part of my internship, way back in 1997, I got to testify before the Utah State Senate about the ease of finding information about making homemade explosives on the internet.
It wasn’t what I saw myself doing when I applied for an internship to work for the Utah Legislature, but it sure was interesting. The Utah legislature is a true citizen’s legislature–it only operates for 45 days per year and almost all the senators and representatives have jobs. In fact, one of the senators I worked for had to miss a day because he owned a snow removal company and there was a massive snowstorm and he had to drive a plow.
I spoke with lobbyists, made phone calls, took notes in committee meetings, and did a lot of internet searches on explosives. (I believe this was for a bill to add filters to school internet access, but it’s been a long time and it could have been something else.) I even ran into a lobbyist in the hallway who shared my rather unique last name (then, McConkie). Turns out he was my dad’s cousin. Who knew?
Even though I never ended up working in government, the experience was invaluable in my future career. I never needed to look up explosives again, but I did learn to deal with people of all levels of an organization, present information, answer questions under pressure, and do a bit of schmoozing. All of these skills are important in an HR department or as a freelance writer.
I asked people how their internships helped them. Here are some of the answers:
To keep reading, click here: How Internships Helped Real People Succeed
Cooperative education, the “big daddy” of internships, was mandatory with my undergraduate degree. Half-year working in a Midwestern county government civil engineering department, one-year on the West Coast with an electronics firm — yes, I learned what I liked and disliked in nice bite-sized chunks. I recommend it to everyone!
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How Internships Helped Real People Succeed, really internship helps people as well as company. Internship gives candidate about corporate culture, company goal, company behavior also gives an clear idea about what they are expecting from an employee. Also this helps company to understand how competent the candidate is. Being placement consultancy in Pune India we also guide fresher as well as professional employee about the corporate behavior.