TKA intern Wei Jing Saw explains how checking your attitude about internships prepares you for success

Being the only intern at my site who is here four days a week (the other five only come in once or twice a week at the most), I get to see most of the intern-supervisor interactions that occur and have, in the back of my mind, compiled a “what not to do at your internship/job” list, which of course, will prove very beneficial both in the short and long run.

Do whatever your supervisor tells you to do
– Put yourself in their shoes. What the heck do you think their impression of you is if the “super-subordinate” (remember, there is nobody lower than you in the pecking order if you are an intern and very few if you’ve just started at an entry-level job) questions every task they are given? If supervisors had time, or could be bothered to do it themselves, they wouldn’t be hiring interns to call up companies to source some really obscure doodad. What you should do is to look at it as practice for interacting with people on a more formal level. Nobody is ever “comfortable” calling up strangers.

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