By: Magdalene Ko, Staff Writer
As highschool students plan the path they will be taking after they graduate, many start taking up internships. By learning valuable skills, internships help students better understand what their major in college should be, as well as potential careers. They provide invaluable job experience as students learn how to interact with authority figures and stay on task. However, this year, COVID-19 has forced many employers and interns to readjust to follow social distancing regulations.
Despite being online, students are still given a unique situation in which they can interact with adults and learn from them. Leanna Yu (12) reflects on the chances an internship offers, saying they “are a great learning opportunity for all high schoolers because it gives you an idea of how real world work operates.” She gets to experience a professional atmosphere different from her usual life, preparing her for her future job. Her training introduces her to a more serious type of interaction with others. Katelyn Chang (10) also believes that her internship gave her many new opportunities and resources, including providing her with important connections she could use later in the future.
Internships include a wide variety of jobs, and can be both paid and unpaid, depending on the employer and position. As a student working for the U.S. Department of State, Yu works for the government agency of Montenegro, making monthly newsletters for the Balkan citizens of Podgorica. She “creates advertisements and flyers for events, activities, and promotions.” Her newsletter normally takes between a few days and a week to make, as she gets content from her boss and organizes it in an appealing manner. Also participating in a digital internship, Chang worked at an ambassadorship program from August to October creating social media posts to spread awareness about the 2020 census. She interacted with people across the Bay Area, learning about viewership engagement and outreach, as well as hosting giveaways. For Madison Wong (12), her paid internship, which she participated in for two years (one in person and one virtually) taught her practical life skills such as applying for colleges. She filed paperwork for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection and “realized [she] would not enjoy a desk job.” During her second internship, affected by COVID-19, she only attended workshops instead of working at the office. Both years, she was taught how to write resumes, pay bills, approach interviews, and more.
Yu’s favorite part about her internship is being given the freedom to express her creativity. Each month, she gets to make a unique design for each newsletter, allowing her the chance to experiment with her digital design interest. Both Chang and Wong stated that what they enjoyed most about their internships was the experience of meeting new people. Their internships enabled them to make connections with a much more diverse group of people, as virtual meetings made it even easier to interact with those physically farther away. However, that was also a downfall, since there was much less actual interaction between interns. Wong felt that not seeing people in-person was the part of her online internship she liked the least, while waking up at 5:30 was her least favorite part of her first internship. Since she worked in San Francisco, she had to take Bart early every morning to get there. As it was summer, she did not have to worry about schoolwork, and was able to focus completely on her internship. Her second internship, affected by COVID-19, focused solely on workshops. Chang, on the other hand, learned how to balance her work and school assignments. She “used a calendar to plan her meetings and her schoolwork, as well as learned how to manage time to ensure she completed all her responsibilities on time.”
Students have been able to adjust to the pandemic, continuing to work hard and pursue their interests despite limited resources. The online format might be different, but many are able to take advantage of the unusual situation to learn something new, through virtual internships. Although we are quarantined at home, there are still many opportunities to pursue our interests.
