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Back in 2006, as I was starting my career and was completely naive to the world outside of college, I started working an unpaid internship at ManiaTV. With zero expectations at hand, I spent four months taking on the tasks that were given to me without really thinking about how my time there was affecting my development or growth. Isn’t that the point of an internship? To get out of the classroom and get applicable hands-on experience?

It is only now, working as a Marketing Coordinator for a company of six people and delegating tasks to four interns, that I realize I should have taken better advantage of my situation.

It can be a full-time job for me to delegate tasks to the interns. So without even thinking about it, I find myself giving them bullshit, clerical-type jobs — this is where I find out the difference in my interns’ drive and personality. I think it is a given that you have to put in your time doing crappy work to get ahead, but it is refreshing to have them ask me to teach them things or have them shadow me.

My favorite intern is genuinely interested in learning new aspects of the business and knows I would never said no to teaching him something. His enthusiasm has gone above and beyond so much so that we hired him on part time.

I wish I would have been more like this intern. Instead, what I have learned from my internship is that I need to speak up, ask questions and leave a place not regretting that I could have gotten more out of the situation.

So our current interns don’t look back four years down the road wondering why they were here, I am going to make an effort to find out what they are interested in and find more ways to get them deeply involved in the department.

I really hope they take me up on my offer, but sadly I think they are just going to want to go through the motions.