Reflections on a 16 month internship…

In just a few weeks I’ll be wrapping up my 16 month internship at IBM and heading back to the classroom, feeling somewhat like a different person with all my fancy ‘real world’ experience and work-friendly clothes. It’s certainly hard to summarize everything I’ve been lucky enough to do over the past year and a bit but some moments really stick out.


Biggest things I learned/gained from my internship –

- How to work with a diverse, global team. Much to my surprise my first day of work, the team I work on has members scattered across the globe. About 90% of the people I work with aren’t at my office and most of them I’ve never met face to face. It took some getting used to but I’ve honed my email and conference call etiquette, and mastered giving a presentation over the web or over the phone.

- An increased confidence in my work and in myself. When I started my internship I had a million questions about everything and a lot of times I would ask myself (or my oh so kind teammates), “Am I doing this right?”. I’ve learned how to operate autonomously (it’s really quite nice not to have a manager checking on your every move), solve a lot of my own problems and find help when I really need it. I hate to sound too cliché, but now when I start a new project I think, “I can do this!”.

- How to network and be introduced to other potential jobs! Working at such a big company I had the opportunity to talk with people with a huge array of different jobs. It’s pretty easy to get an introduction to someone in almost any area of the company. I learned that IBMers (or maybe people in general) love to explain their jobs to you! If you’re interested, they have many words of wisdom.

Favourite Moments –

- The first time a co-worker reached out specifically to me for advice and help on a project. Working with so many people I consider talented and experienced marketing professionals, I’m usually the one asking for advice. As an intern I was happy enough to be doing real work as opposed to making photocopies or getting coffee (IBM interns don’t do that stuff!). But as my internship progressed, colleagues started coming to me for advice too. How cool is it that I’m now considered a subject matter expert in certain areas too?!

- IBM’s Centennial Day Celebrations and pre-celebratory decorating, watching WATSON compete on Jeopardy in IBM’s amphitheatre along with a hundred other IBMers. How lucky that I was working at IBM during both these momentous occasions!

- Making a presentation to the 200+ new interns that started their internships in May. Hard to believe I was in their position just one year ago, watching someone excitedly make presentations to me.

More than a year ago when I was filling out applications, I wanted an internship for so many reasons. My internship at IBM has definitely fulfilled those goals, and then some! I wanted to get solid work experience (check), a break from school (check), form a better idea of what I want to do after graduation (check), and make some money for student bills (check). On top of that, I really think I’ve been ‘spoiled’ at IBM with even more opportunity than I expected: being a leader of the IBM student community (Future Blue), having great manager and team, having flexible work hours and lots of at and after work activities to take part in. If this is the real world, it’s not so bad.

Olivia Stille