Lessons Learned

I have been trying to come up with some insights I’ve been able to draw from my internship experience this semester. Since this was really my first experience working around other people in an office setting, I learned a fair amount of valuable information along those lines. I learned a lot about delegating tasks just from observing my supervisors delegate to me, even though I never did any of the delegating, of course. When I’m in the position of distributing tasks effectively, I’ll know how important it is to give people a clear explanation of what it is I’m expecting from them, and I’ll make sure to give them a clear indication of the time frame within which I want the task completed. That’s sometimes easier said than done, as I’m fully aware, but these things must nevertheless be kept in mind when delegating workloads.

I’ve also learned much about myself and what kinds of things I can excel at in the office. During the internship, I worked directly with other people at some points as well as working entirely independently at other. I can say now that I do not have much of a preference between these two scenarios. As we discussed in class one day, people of my generation tend to perform better when they work together in groups, and I did work very productively when I was put into a team with others. However, I also found it very easy and sometimes more enjoyable to work on projects completely by myself. I spent the entire last month at my internship working on a project by myself. I was writing and editing summary briefs for the new case law that has been established in 2010 and 2011. It was easy for me to come into the office, sit down, and type away for hours on the project without talking to anyone. I’m not saying that it never got old, but I will say that not many people could perform as productively in that setting as I did.