I Got an Intern

Yesterday I had my first meeting with my summer intern. Hopefully her summer does not end like this member of the Team Zissou intern program.

The idea of doing internships in our office has been often vacillated on. At times, it has seemed unnecessary because of graduate assistants, and positions have been created to allow long term projects to be overseen by one person for their duration. At the same time, pressure to expand our offerings, combined with less consistent GA availability over the summer, has allowed for us to take on interns. And so here I am, working with one for summer programming efforts including the division-wide efforts, and planning for our fall welcome week.

I expressed some of my apprehensions about supervising a graduate assistant earlier this year (WOW, that was almost a year ago, I'm realizing! Whaaaat?), but with an intern it's different. Graduate assistants, at least in our office, are developed more intentionally, and the tasks they are given are substantive. I worry about my ability to do so for someone who's only in the office for three months, and for a few days each week. I find myself hoping that the projects she works on are substantive, that we develop a good mentoring relationship, and that she truly has an opportunity to learn the office in the time that she's here.

What do you do to make sure that your interns have a good experience? Is their training or level of work different from the graduate students in your office?