Performance Reviews, Mid-Internship Progress, and The Halfway Point

This week, I did something that I thought I would never be able to do: I survived my first-ever performance review. 

Although I originally requested a performance review from one of my editors, she told me I didn't need one—I had already survived one summer at the mag, so I didn't need to talk to them. (Whew!) Then, my editor sent me an email saying that since all of the other interns had requested performance reviews, I should probably follow suit and talk to her, too. (Eeek!) Since this happened two weeks ago, I had been panicking ever since. What if my editors told me I was worse than I was last summer? 

When my editor called me into the conference room this week, I was shaking. She started reading off a list of things I was doing well (Yay!)...but I felt like there had to be a list of things I wasn't doing well too, right? Then, she started telling me things the team would like me to improve upon...and thankfully, it was only a few SEO-related tidbits. Huzzah! I had survived my performance review relatively unscathed and, somehow, even more confident: my editor had made me feel really good about my writing and my work over the past two summers. It felt amazing to hear that from a team of editors that I've come to admire and respect over the past year. 

Since we're at the middle of the internship, my workload has definitely come to a standstill. I've tweeted, I've tumbled, I've written blog post after blog post and syndicated articles in Shine all day for the past six weeks—but if there's one thing I've realized I want, more than anything else, it's to pitch and write a full-length article on my own for the site. My editors are telling me that my pitches are almost there, and I just hope I can make it before the end of the summer! 

It's also starting to really hit me that I might not be at working at TeenMag.com after I graduate. I'm completely and totally obsessed with it there—and I can't imagine not writing for the site anymore. I really hope there's a position open for me at TeenMag.com, and if there's not, there's something available at TeenMag's parent company. It's a really incredible company, and I'd love to be a part of it. Are you getting sad about the end of your internships, Edsters? Are you completing your mid-internship goals? I'd love to hear how your summers are going! 

Until next time, 

Ed's Web Intern