Preserved Topic: My First Internship

Annexa a webdesign firm in my hometown sounded possitive about allowing me to intern with them. http://www.annexa.com

I have never done this before and was wondering if any of you who have been an intern or have worked with interns have any words of wisdom for me.

What should I expect from this experience, just anything pertaining to it.

Do you think that I do good enough work to warrent this internship?

Anything and everything would be appreciated.

you'll own the place by year's end. Good luck and congrats.

JKMabry

Well I have technically been an "intern" for about a year, and it is a paid position too...

I didn't know what to expect when I started either, what happened is that I just got a chance to flex my muscles and put the skills I had to good use and it gave (gives) me an oppurtunity to work on projects that I couldn't or wouldn't have worked on otherwise.

I work in a museum and I am responsible for working on exhibits and displays, digitizing and retouching photographs, making signs (ugh!) creating ads (ugh ugh!) and alot of other little stuff. (they call me Graphics Goddess now!)It has been great and the hours/flexability works really well with my school schedule.

Pretty soon I am going to start working for them from home, they are giving me a comp. to use, and I hope to start doing some of the cool stuff that I want to do.


One of the best things that you can take from an internship is confidence, one of the worst things you can get is a lot of grunt/crap work. And if at times you feel intimidated or that you suck royally, just keep going and don't be afraid to fail.

Congrats Dan....

Tell 'em to check out Gurus
...nuff said........ <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif">

I was never an intern.. but I did serve an apprenticeship (4 years) as a Design Engineer many many moons ago.

My best advice, would be to ask questions.. lots and lots of questions! Obviously not too many that you become a 'pain' but never be afraid to ask. I think it is one of the best ways of learning and shows enthusiasm to the people you will be working with. I can tell you from my own experience in my career that I have more time for fellow junior designers who show interest and ask questions that for guys who just 'coast' along.

In your new position look for a 'mentor', and if you are lucky enough to find one you will be amazed at how much you will learn from this individual. I owe most of my success to one guy I was working with during my apprenticeship, who took me under his wing so to speak. Was invaluable to me and still plays an important role in my career even today.

So there is my advice. Learn as much as you can. Don't be pissed off if you are given too much drudge work... do it as quick as possible and then ask for something more challenging to do....
remember that a little sacrifice early on in your career will pay dividends later.. and Rome wasn't built in a day!

Good Luck and enjoy!

~Vp~

EDIT: typos.. still cant spell ! <img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/smile.gif">


[This message has been edited by vogonpoet (edited 11-15-2000).]

Thanks for the advice and support all!

I just go another letter from the company that I will be interning with, and they told me that they will let me choose a project that I would like to work on.

Which would be pretty cool. The time constraints which would be 8 weeks are a bummer, but in 8 weeks I am sure that I would be able to add a lot of functionality to their business, client's pages or what not.

It is pretty exciting to be able to get out into real world web design. I think working for someone will be really interesting, a break from the freelance, and time for a little structure.

It will also help to teach me the business end of web design, which I have been pretty lax on the past couple of years.

Ummm, from what I remember of your work, those guys should be interning with you. At least judging by their homepage which isn't even properly anti-aliased for cryin out loud. And those colors, did they just have a box of fluorescent crayolas?