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The Importance of the Internship

Autor:   •  April 19, 2018  •  2,832 Words (12 Pages)  •  504 Views

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getting valuable skills, experience, above average pay, and a nice resume entry; students are able to begin networking and building relationships with mentors.

My Internship Experience

Making of the Internship

My internship experience started with an email to the owner of Universal Weather and

Aviation Inc. If it weren’t for my family’s close tie to the company and owner, this option would

not have been open to me, which goes to show the importance of networking. This direct

connection allowed me to skip all of the front end communication and be directly put in contact

with the people who could make something happen. After many emails back and forth describing

what I was studying in school, and what area within the company I was interested in, we set up a

formal meeting. I was beyond nervous, because I was to meet with the CIO and the Senior Vice

President of International Operations. Even with knowing that they were there upon personal

request of the owner and would help in whatever way they could, hearing those kind of titles was

intimidating.

Before my meeting, I did further research into the company so I would be prepared to

discuss with them different intern options. The day of the meeting I came early dressed

in suit and tie and prepared with multiple copies of my resume. As the meeting progressed my

nervousness eased as the two gentlemen proved to be really laid back and down to earth. To my

surprise they were more concerned with trying to put together an internship that would allow me

to experience everything the company had to offer. By the end of the meeting we had tossed

ideas back and forth and were able come up and agree upon a general structure for my internship

that benefitted both sides. I was to be based out of their office in Stansted, London where I would

spend part of my internship working with their IT department and the other with their operations

department ground handling corporate airplanes. My flight was to be paid for, I would receive a

amount of compensation, it was arranged that I would stay with an employee throughout the

duration. I left the meeting feeling like I was on cloud nine! I was going to be able to get work

experience in both areas I’m studying not to mention I would be in London! Thoughts of

traveling and sightseeing all of over Europe on my time off flooded my head and left me day

dreaming and researching all sorts of things I could do.

Further communication continued as the weeks progressed as I prepared for an

international internship by renewing my passport and gathering other needed supplies.

Unfortunately, a month or two after my meeting I heard that Universal was to undergo its first

ever company layoff. Nervous, with a gut feeling that something was going to happen with my

internship, I patiently waited. A couple days later I received an email from the V.P., informing

me of the company’s layoffs, and that even though my internship would still be supported,

London was no longer feasible. So through discussion, an alternate internship was drawn up so

that I would still be able to gain experience with their IT and Operations department at their

headquarters in Houston.

During the Internship

I started my time at Universal with their IT department, where I answered to a steering

committee put together by the CIO. This committee consisted of three senior managers from

different divisions of the IT department. My expectation of the internship was that there was

going to be a high amount of structure around my day-to-day work and when it came to reporting

my progress. Instead, after I was briefed on my project, I was given plenty of space and time to

complete it. When I think back about it now, that’s just how the business world works. They

give you a task and expect you to be able to accomplish it without them having to stand over

you. Over time, the complexity of my project became more prevalent and it came down to a

decision I needed to make. Either I finish out the rest of my internship with IT so that I would

have the needed time to complete my project or finish the last part of my internship with

Operations like originally planned. In the end I decided to finish out in IT and use that time to

complete my project.

Intern Project

The project tasked to me during my internship, was to conduct a gap analysis of the IT

departments current state and provide recommendations to improve their System Development

Lifecycle. In the process, I was also tasked to flow chart the lifecycle and convert the document

into a repository containing

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