Anne Lamott once wrote,
“But you don’t always get what you want, you get what you get!’
These are the truest words ever written. Everyone envisions a future for himself, everybody dreams, but not everybody gets what he wants.
Unfortunately, sometimes, it is something as important as your Summer Internship.
Either you didn’t get it in the field you wanted, or you missed out on your dream company in spite of trying your best. And now, you have a summer internship in your hand, but it is not what you wanted to spend your summer doing.
The golden rule in MBA (rather, in life) is to give your best to whatever you do,
even if it is something you dislike.
Here are 5 reasons why you should give your best to your summer internship even if you hate it.
Get the offer.
You need to get the PPO or at least, PPI even if it is doing something you hate more than mildly. It will make your life much easier because you won’t be required to answer
why you didn’t get an offer and people will be skeptical of your abilities. However, if you get the offer, you don’t need to explain anything – you can simply say that “I interned at XYZ company and while I enjoyed my experience and they gave me an offer, I didn’t take it because it wasn’t a good fit.”
If your school has a rule whereby it is compulsory for you to accept an offer, you can verbally inform your manager and HR that you would prefer not to receive a PPO, and they will be sure to comply.
Enjoying it.
I have already written about
why you should
ditch your attitude and be prepared to take up whatever work you get during your summer internship. It is a proven fact that
when you are doing something you enjoy, time flies more quickly. Doesn't it simply make more sense to stop cribbing and just do it well?
Passion is overrated. / Passion comes with practice.
Your reasons for resenting your internship could be that you are not passionate about it (say, you love marketing, but you are stuck with B2C sales), but the truth is, that passion is incredibly overrated. When you are good at something, you automatically feel a surge of happiness and satisfaction because
you are able to do it well. And hence, you become passionate about it. For example, most people who are passionate about numbers are those who were actually good at math while growing up. While there are cases where people are below average at what they are passionate about, those cases are few and far between.
Breaking the cycle of discontentment
If you are resentful of your work and don’t do it well, you end up getting criticism for lack of efficiency. This dampens your spirits further, thereby causing you to perform even worse. Agreed, an internship is a short period of time only, but if you do it well, it will boost your confidence a little and make you feel better about yourself.
Gaining perspective
You might have decided what you are interested in doing, but it is always good to get perspective about everything that is there to do. You can get a definite idea on what you want to do only after you have been around the space a bit. For example, it is a well-known fact that sales and marketing are intertwined, so if you are planning to make a career in marketing, it is mighty helpful if you try your hands on sales first.
You don’t always get what you want, but if you do it right, you will eventually get what you deserve.