Initial worries turned into motivation from unexpected internship role
For my internship, I’m working at a small startup in New Jersey called The Inspired Company. Formerly a non-profit, The Inspired Company is now a certified-B corporation focused in the rapidly growing mental health field. This company is in very early stages and doesn’t see a ton of revenue coming in now, but that is because their two biggest assets as a company are currently in the process of being developed to their fullest. The first is Renewed Awareness magazine, a monthly publication produced by a team of writers at the company that explores mental health and overall wellness in a variety of different ways. The second is Therapute, an app that’s currently being developed and will launch at the end of this week (Saturday, November 20th). The app focuses on linking a wide variety of different mental health professionals with patients across the country at a significantly lower cost than the competition.
Most of my work since starting here in September has been focused on work around the app, and it’s been a great learning experience, especially considering I am the main advertising person at the company. When I started here, I was worried that I would be quickly overwhelmed with how much would be asked of me in this role, but those worries went away quickly as I got to understand what the team expects from their interns. Working here for the two months or so has been a really great experience, and it’s in large part to the people I’m working with. CEO and founder Maggie Rose has an incredibly inspiring story that put her on the path towards creating this company and her passion shows through her work. As a whole, the few team members here who are not interns have a very clear focus on what they want to achieve with this company, and as an intern, it makes coming to work better because I know I’m not going to become some forgotten intern like I’ve had at other experiences.
Overall, my experience has been what I expected it would be in an everyday sense, but way more in terms of valuable experience I will walk away with in the end. The workload that was at one point seemed overwhelming was actually not too much at all, and the fact that they trusted me with the level of work with so little time at the company became a motivator to give my best effort every time I come to work. One bit of advice I would give to someone in their internship process is to not be afraid to go outside your comfort zone. When I was looking for an opportunity, it felt so important to find something that met every expectation I had. I ended up accepting a role that forces me to take an hour-long commute twice a week to New Jersey for a role I was very unsure of, and I ended up being very happy that I did.
For anyone interested in checking out Therapute, visit https://www.therapute.co/. There’s a decent chance that the app has already launched by the time you’re reading this!!
