Alright, it’s week eight in your internship. The end of summer is approaching, and you’re a couple weeks from finishing. What should you do now? You’ve asked the questions, given your input, and tried to be the best intern you could be, but what happens now?

I feel like there’s a shift that takes place over the course of an internship. I think you could consider the ‘shift’ like a series of stages. Stage one is what I like to call the “oh s**t” phase; you’re just figuring things out, and you’re not sure yet if you’ve got what it takes to handle it yet. And, from what I’ve learned, the only way to get to stage two (the “I get this, but not that” phase) is to be confident in your own ability to succeed.

In stage one, I was afraid of letting my supervisors down and letting Ingenuity down, because I thought I didn’t know enough to make meaningful contributions. Then I realized, no one knows everything. While I didn’t know, for example, what quality arts indicators are most equitable and student focused, I did understand how to think through the problems myself. Is requiring all schools to have their musical instruments in-tune equitable? Student-focused? My colleagues decided “no.” But I thought there was something there, so I gave my opinion (me, as a non-arts education expert). I said that while it’s not fair to require schools to make their instruments in-tune when they could be funding more student-oriented opportunities, it is an important to know whether or not students have access to quality tools that allow them to create effectively. While I haven’t been exposed to the entire conversation surrounding arts education in Chicago for the past several years, I was able to trust, draw upon, and offer my perspective. It got others in the room thinking differently about how they saw the problem. So in trusting myself, I moved to stage two which is where I am now.

Stage two is all about confidence, professionalism, and enthusiasm; you’ve got to have ‘em. This is because it’s easy to become the underdog… the millennial… the kid in the office. It’s important to explicitly show what you understand while professionally asking for clarity. My favorite line has become, “what I’m hearing from you is [this], am I understanding you correctly?” This allows you to show that you are engaged in what your supervisor is saying while also asking about what you don’t know. Being the kid means sometimes your supervisors and colleagues over-explain things (this is likely because it totally looked like you were in over your head on week one– and that’s okay). Just remember: exude confidence which equals trusting, drawing upon, and offering your perspective. Once you’ve mastered that, you move on to the final stage: the “what now?” stage.

This is what I’ll be entering as I step into week nine of my internship on Monday morning. What now? I feel comfortable doing the job I came here to do and sharing my opinions, so what’s next for my to accomplish other than more experience? Exactly. You should now, at the end of your internship, start asking yourself if you’re getting the experience out of this professional opportunity that you’d hoped. At the beginning of the summer, hopefully, you made a list of what you’d like to learn how to do or get better at. It’s time to check-in. Did you accomplish everything? My starter list was to get better at networking, get better at communicating, get better at public speaking, and understand how to use this experience to show my professional capability. I think I’ve gotten fractionally better at each, but now it’s the last lap and I’m running out of time to get it all done.

Enter, stage four.

Focus on your goals. You know what you need to do to finish your internship projects, and it’s time to bring your goals to a more forward place in your mind. Make a list of which experiences you think would help you check-off your goal list. For me, that’s reaching out to more folks at the big event next week, checking-in more regularly with my supervisor, helping to present our final instructional session, and identifying through-lines in the skills I learned and the next position I’d like to apply for. Wish me luck!

Cheers!

When applying to be a CAPS Fellow, I had a limited understanding of what that meant. I knew from former Fellows that it meant interning at “real” job, travelling to that “real” job, and spending my summer gaining some experience. But, just what exactly was that job? Where would I be going? Staying? Doing? To be honest, those questions are hard to answer. The best way to understand it is to experience it.

The first day I started at Ingenuity was the first day that I really understood what that non-profit does, and, really, I don’t think anyone could have explained it to me beforehand. There’s a process, I’ve learned, that comes with entering a new space (a new workplace). It’s a whole new environment, and, to do the job right, you need a lot of context for why your colleagues do the work they do and why. Before arriving, I browsed their website and googled the work they did in the past, but I began to understand more just by being there.

What do I mean by that? I mean: you learn most about your CAPS Fellows placement just by listening in on meetings, listening to your colleagues chat about the work, and having your colleagues explain to you how their work contributes to the larger trajectory of the organization.

And, please, ask questions!! It’s really easy to let yourself feel like you’re not qualified or as experienced as your colleagues, and that might make you feel like you should remain quiet so as to not disrupt the work going on, but don’t! In my experience, folks are so happy to bring you into the conversation. They want your input! So, if there’s clarification that you need in order to make meaningful contributions to the conversation, by all means ask for it!

At Ingenuity, I’ve learned (through asking questions) that the organization’s goal is to bring arts education to every Chicago Public Schools student. One of the questions I asked: “How does Ingenuity do that?” Once I learned that Ingenuity is the Chicago ‘hub’ that tracks arts partners (organizations like: museums, galleries, creative working studios or any places that provide access to arts education) and teaching artists (in the classroom) at every school, I could then ask questions like, “What resources does Ingenuity provide that connects arts partners and teaching artists?” Their response is: Ingenuity provides several training sessions available to both partners and teachers throughout the year in order to inform them how they can use Ingenuity’s resources to their benefit (like arts grants), advocate for the continuance and addition of arts ed in schools, and much more. After learning the basics, through asking questions, I was able to not only understand the work that was going on but also where I could contribute to the conversation. It was because I asked questions that I got myself assigned to developing one of the training sessions I was most interested in (storytelling as an advocacy tool!).

So, just relax, believe in your own ideas, and trust that people want you to succeed, and then you’ll have an amazing time at your CAPS placement, meeting tons of wonderful people!