For Summer Interns: Your Personal Matrix

We are going to step far afield of our usual sources this morning … Jodi Glickman at the, ahem Harvard Business Review writes about evaluating your summer internship as you hit the midway point.

It’s an excellent read, something that I’m tucking away to talk with my students about before the next batch is heading off into internship-land. (Which, by the way? I have great kids who will be ready to go in January. Drop me a note and we’ll talk.)

Glickman writes about developing a personal matrix to look at where you are now and where you want to be by the end of your term. One of the problems I suspect most interns run into is just being overwhelmed – the difference between their classroom experience, and even a campus publication, and the real world is huge. Just trying to stay afloat is a challenge for some of them, so tacking on the idea of a self-evaluation and then going and talking to their editors about their goals is another daunting task.

But they have to do it. Hear that, interns – you MUST make your editor talk with you about how you’re doing, otherwise you’re just cheap labor.

(Thanks to Taylor Merck for the link.)