How To Stay Motivated: Unpaid Intern Woes

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Happy Friday Edsters!

Sometimes it can be really hard to stay motivated at your unpaid internship. Maybe you’re doing some pointless work, or worse, doing someone else’s work. However, here are a three few ways to keep you motivated through the rough days: 

Experience – if you can think of at least one of two things you learned at your internship, you’re time was not wasted. I learned how to use CMS on the job, which is more valuable than learning in a classroom. When I remind myself that I’m more educated now than I was when I got here, it makes me a bit happier. Also, it’s killer for your resume. 

Networking – just by being meeting people you’re networking, which is a really cool concept. I recently met the art intern at my job, and we hit it off immediately. Once we started talking and she learned that this internship is my first, she gave me a lot of great tips for keeping in touch with my bosses at the Mag. It’s pretty amazing how friendly people are and what you can learn for them.

Learning – you get to see the work that is put into running a magazine. I’ve took part in pre- and post-production camera shoots, assembling a team for various projects, brainstorming ideas for articles, wrote articles and tips, learned about CMS, HTML, SEO and so much more, and that was mostly from observing the people around me work so well together. 

Although I knew I wanted to be a journalist, I wasn’t sure whether editing or writing or something completely different would be right for me. After this internship, I have a clearer idea of what I want to do. That information is invaluable. So yes, unpaid internships are the worst, but they’re not really the worst. And they don’t last forever.

XO,

Shelter Intern