Umm… What Now?
My Internship is almost over. Now what?
I worked at Red Tettemer because I knew it would be a well-established agency that would be able to teach me a lot. I really liked the range of clients they worked with and I wanted to see the strategies that runs those brands (including Planet Fitness, Morningstar Farms, and Dockers). The agency is a friendly, fun environment that let me learn in a fast pace. I feel like I have been instilled with great knowledge for future jobs or internships, but I just really have no clue what I want to do next!
With just two semesters left of my undergraduate career, I am so unsure how busy I am going to be. I have just two semester to finish X amount of credit, I work at a restaurant, and I’m tempted to pick up another internship to build my experience.
Ah… but then the stress comes in. You redesign your resume. You contact several potential employers, then you wait for replies, you follow up, and wait in hope you get at least one interview.
When I began advertising at Temple, I felt like the build up all led to the internship – BUT NOW WHAT. I think this is kind of awesome that I am so unsure because I get all this time to really pull myself out of my own head and just think of the endless possibilities. How should I make my career?
I met several people at Red Tettemer who are all extremely hard working people, especially those who work in the creative department. They devote so much time to their work and it really is so inspiring. My pal Zach that I work with commits so much time to being a graphic design intern because he is just so completely passionate about it. This helps me see that I should be doing the same thing. Others, like my fellow intern Austin, really showed me how to become so much more organized. I think this is the best part I got from my internship thus far. I organize all of my notes and all of my work together in clean files and Google Sheets that I can access right on the spot (for login info, influencer contact info, etc.). This is a major help at any business I will work at.
I’ve got to find that one thing that really gives me the drive to fully work at what I want to accomplish. So do I continue a path to agency life? Do I follow that insane dream and become an entrepreneur? It’s all rolling around in my head and I think the answer will arrive soon enough.
Chris it is very cool that you got so much out of your internship, as I’m guessing many, if not all of us did. As Fall approaches I too have been feeling a sort of stress about what comes next. I started applying for Fall internships at agencies all around Philadelphia but I can’t help but think about what is going to happen after I graduate.
Little by little I try to have an ongoing dialogue in my head about what I want and how I’m going to get there. Once when I was discussing this stress with a professor, they stopped and shared a quote they once heard, which really resonated with me … “After years of hard work, I became an overnight success.”
Now I could share a dozen metaphors for success with you but we both know very well that in this industry it takes a lot of hard work to achieve greatness. In addition to taking baby steps to reach a goal, I also tried to stop comparing myself to other people who, despite them being the same age as me, are doing things in the industry that make me face-palm and wonder how they got to that point so early in their career. When I compare myself to other people it leaves me feeling bad and discouraged but once you learn to kick the habit and start comparing your present self to your past self and seeing how far you’ve come, a great sense of pride will wash over you when you realize that you have done something that gets you one step closer to reaching you goals, whatever they may be.