Roman Internship

Internship. This word held a negative connotation in my mind when I started this experience. I was expecting to be another stereotypical intern, who goes gets the coffee and be given tasks that no one else in the office wanted to do.  I was expecting to be another fly on the wall who is constantly there but does nothing but decorate the wall and occasionally bother the people around the office.  Fortunately, this was not the case at all with my internship. I have been constantly involved with multiple projects. I have also been asked for my opinion as well as my expertise in various different circumstances to help develop an idea further. I have been given free reign over specific tasks, which have challenged me to become more independent and have an actual reason for doing the method I did in order to defend it if questioned. I have had to become much more independent and stand by my ideas. This is very exciting because for the  longest time I was afraid to speak up a...

After having been MIA due to bronchitis last week, I returned to my internship to find that they had waited for me to return in order to continue on the project I had been a part of. This made me feel very proud because it showed that I was in fact part of the team and that my presence made a difference. This was an unexpected feeling because when I began the internship I mistakenly believed as if they were doing my university a favor by allowing me to be there. As if my presence was almost an inconvenience for them because I'd slow them down. Obviously, I was mistaken and coming back to them having waited for me was appreciated it. This week my duties involved  going through a PowerPoint and making it "sexier" (that was the word Erica used when she asked for my help).  She wanted me to make her presentation more modern and appealing. I went through every slide and changed the type of animation (the kind she had was too crazy and distracting). I also switched up the co...

This past week at my internship was a great learning experience. I had the chance to have breakfast with everyone in the office on Wednesday morning. Despite my limited Italian, I was able to get to know everyone in the office better as well as connect with them in a less official setting. I am looking forward to more of these types of mini events within the office . Another great learning experience for me this past week was that for the first time since I started this internship, I was asked to partake in the "real" consulting work that they do. I was put in charge of a program. I was to analyse the data they had collected (with the help of Erica, a full time employee who has done this type of work countless time before). I was to analyse the data and brainstorm solutions to the problems the company that had hired the consulting company I am interning for. Once I had come up with some solutions, I shared them with Erica who have me her notes and together we compiled a ...