Learnings beyond books – my internship experience

As classes are in full swing, fifth semester is coming up and graduation is in sight, I look back at my internship experience over the summer at Village Square and ACCESS Development Services (ACCESS). Being an intern was a unique experience where I felt empowered, inspired and learned new things every day. From walking in on my first day until leaving two months later, I gained so much knowledge and experience I didn’t even expect.

Throughout my internship, I was part of the communication team and guided by the Communications Manager of the organization. I didn’t have much experience with the offline internship beforehand, but I knew it’ll be a learning experience for me and I was eager to learn more.

An intern as an equal

From the beginning, I was met with respect and understanding. I was treated as an employee, not just an intern. I was encouraged to seek clarity whenever there was some confusion. 

As I was directly working with my manager, he would often listen to what I was doing and we would come up with solutions together. Since we had to take care of social media engagements, I learned several digital strategies and got a complete picture of what a role in communications could be like for me in the future. 

All through the process, the team members listened to my opinions and  implemented my ideas, thereby giving me responsibilities that made real impacts on the project. 

New learnings every day

During the internship at ACCESS, one of the things I understood was that learning takes on many faces.

I was told at the beginning of June that every day may look different, and I wasn’t able to comprehend fully what that meant. In regard to my ability to absorb the information flying around me, I had to re-evaluate my perspective on success. 

I soon realized that the actions and steps I took to learn from my coworkers varied from day to day. While consistency is key, I got better at fine-tuning my workplace awareness to be more productive.”

In the process thereof, I learned the importance of knowledge synthesis, the benefits of networking, and the value of working independently. In the entire process, journaling has helped me both in and outside the workplace. This internship presented me with a rare opportunity to develop my skills and gave me a deeper understanding of myself as an undergraduate.

Mistakes are part of the process

It’s okay to make mistakes. This one was especially difficult in the beginning. From errors in updating the right info on a website to forgetting to send an important email attachment, to the mistake I overlooked in a social media policy, I beat myself up about all of them. 

The good thing about making mistakes, though, is they become lessons learned. Mistakes are inevitable, but how you choose to recover from them is what really matters in the long run. The purpose of an internship is to grow and learn, so by the time you have a full-time job, those mistakes hopefully won’t be made. Interns are like a work in progress, and we are bound to be a little rough around the edges. 

All in all, the internship at ACCESS was an unforgettable experience for me. It allowed me to go beyond book knowledge and apply it to real-world problems. It also allowed me to work with great mentors and learn from each one of them. It was undoubtedly an integral part of my internship, and I now feel more confident and determined about my future path. I strongly recommend Village Square – Youth Hub internship opportunity to prospective interns. If you are interested to apply for the internship, please fill out the application form – https://lnkd.in/dVbeygEu

Mahima Choudhary is a commerce student at Gargi College, University of Delhi. As part of Village Square Youth Hub internship, she worked with ACCESS, Delhi as a communications intern.