The Virtual Internship

This year’s summer internships turned out to be quite the experience for students across the globe. Gone were the cubicles and the commute, no more coffee breaks and water cooler shenanigans with teammates and colleagues; in essence, the conventional corporate internship experience was not what this year’s interns had in store for them.

Rather, they were greeted with virtual on boarding and team connects, stakeholder interaction and weekly catch ups were all online now. Yes, my friends, this is the result of the global pandemic that has taken the world by storm requiring that firms make the shift to the virtual mode in order to facilitate our internships for the safety of everyone at large.

At this you might be wondering what good is a virtual internship? The answer lies in the fact that we must look at what we have been exposed to and the understanding we have gained throughout the duration of our internship. Sure, it is not what we all expected or what many others have gone through before; however, we have learned to work in virtual environments, understood that we can still connect and relate to people who are sitting on the opposite end of the screen and most importantly stay safe while gaining a fundamental understanding of our assigned domains during internships.

We must take note of the fact that we have certainly been exposed to a different set of experiences that those that have come before us; however, this also implies that we have learnt different lessons that them as well. In essence we now understand that virtual internships more often than not, can and will work. It simply needs effort and understanding on our end.

As we look back on this period of time, I’m sure we will be able to say that although the pandemic was raging, we found ways to be engaged in a virtual internship that helped in a multitude of ways.