The Internship You Don't Want: Your Greatest Learning Experience

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While it may seem easy to say that you should turn it down and wait for something better, here’s why it can be one of the most valuable experiences of your career if you take it.  Sometimes in life, it’s better to know what you don’t want before knowing what you do want. It keeps you moving forward instead of at a stand still because you’re slowly crossing off the things you don’t want off the list. That’s why and internship that seems just “ok” can be so helpful in the beginning stages of your career. When you apply for full time jobs, you’ll be one step ahead of everyone else because you’ll know what you don’t want and know to look somewhere else. But here’s the catch. You can’t say you don’t want it until you’ve experienced it first hand, especially when it comes to jobs. So take the “ok” internship and be ready to learn one of your greatest career lessons.

1. The first few years of your career are about exploration and learning about what you want and don’t want out of a job and career. By taking a internship that wasn’t your dream internship can give you real life examples as to why that industry or department isn’t right for you. Through your 3-month internship, you’ll be learning the ins and outs of that department and learning about what it really takes for it to run.
2. The sooner you can start learning about different company cultures the better you’ll know how to choose a future employer after graduation. That’s why an “ok” internship is better than no internship. Even if it’s in a department or industry you’re not passionate about, you’re still going to learn a lot about the importance of company culture. You’ll see if a cubicle workspace is important to you, if the location of the office is important to you, or how often you like to interact with your coworkers inside and outside of the office.   
3. You might be surprised by what you find. There’s only so much that a job description can tell about a job. So while It may be something that doesn’t sound very exciting to you, you may be surprised once you’re actually working there. You could end up with a really cool project, or have great team members, or even discover that the department is actually a place you could see yourself after graduation. You’ll also get exposure to other departments within the company that could be in areas you didn’t even know existed. There are so many jobs out there that you wont know existed until you’re actually in your first job. By discovering this as an intern, you’ll have better direction come graduation day.

If you have been dreading your upcoming internship because it’s not something your completely passionate about, remember, it’s not a loss. If anything, it’s going to be one of the greatest career lessons you’ll learn and it will be setting you up for success once you do enter the workforce full time because you’ll know exactly what you want and don’t want.