The Importance of the Internship
Autor: Mikki • April 19, 2018 • 2,832 Words (12 Pages) • 504 Views
...
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
...