For many, treating an intern as a team member, let alone a real human being, is a foreign concept. Most interns are tasked with taking out the trash, refilling coffee cups, and walking the boss’ dog. Please don’t get me wrong, I have been asked do all of the above and much more as an intern with other agencies, however when RocketBuild asked me to join the team for the summer, I hoped I would get to skip the typical internship tasks and get my hands on work I wanted to be doing. I knew I had made the right decision when Eric Johnson, RocketBuild’s Director of Development (Chief of Awesomeness), mentioned on several occasions that he views and treats interns as “junior developers” rather than plain ‘ole interns. Before I had even started, I already felt like I was a part of the team.
Just as my internship began, I was asked to begin working on an internal tool. This was an exciting experience, because for once I wasn’t sitting around waiting for work to come my way. This internal tool was a perfect way to bring me up to speed on RocketBuild’s processes and tools. In fact, I spent the first couple of weeks asking a lot of questions, which I’m sure got annoying quite quickly. (Sorry guys!) As the summer progressed, my time spent on the internal tool decreased and I started to shift my focus to taking tickets for client work. This is when I really felt like I had earned that title of “junior developer” Eric had mentioned many times before. I felt accountable, I felt responsible, and most importantly I felt like I was doing what was expected of me beyond my college years. I told the team during a company meeting, back in June, that I had never been so excited to come back to work the next day until this summer and that was a phenomenal feeling. I found myself still thinking about the projects I had worked on that day or the conversations and laughs I had with the team and I couldn’t wait to go back and do it all again.
My expectations at the beginning of the internship were low, given my previous internship experience, but my three-month internship with RocketBuild exceeded my expectations and helped me feel accomplished this summer. Obviously, I didn’t even scratch the surface when it comes to recalling all that I have learned this summer and I could even get into the nerdy parts too, however I’ll spare you of that.
TLDR; 10/10 Would intern again!
