Three Tips for a Successful Internship

"My internship was a great ride. I did something different, I learned something about myself, and I have a compelling story to tell"

By Sarah Baranowski

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Sarah Baranowski
University of Wisconsin-Madison
MBA Class of 2009

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This summer I came inches away from foregoing the traditional internship route. I had decided that a few good but physically distant opportunities would put too much stress on my young children. And I was uninterested in many opportunities that would have sounded great to me eight or 10 years ago. I was weighing my nonconventional options, mainly pro bono work and new business development, when the right traditional opportunity came along. In the final weeks of spring semester, I accepted a strategic planning project for a local biotech company. I spent the summer working on product launch strategies, operations planning, and business model development for a new technology. It turned out to be a lot of fun, and a great learning experience to boot.

But first things first. It was not exactly smooth sailing the whole way through. Halfway into the summer, the company was acquired. As the result of a new, narrower focus, my project was canceled two weeks before my scheduled departure. My team was disbanded, and our plans were shelved. Of course I am disappointed that I don't get to see my work put to immediate action, but I cannot discount the learning experience. Nor can I find fault in the decision to put the project on hold; better to secure success on one project than to risk failure on five—especially in the midst of a big transition.

No matter the bumpy landing, it was a great ride. Why? Three reasons:

• I did something different.

• I learned something about myself.

• I have a compelling story to tell.

So now I will turn to these specific characteristics that made this internship a good and worthwhile experience. I hope these thoughts translate into some useful advice about what to look for in an MBA internship, if you happen to have the luxury of selectivity. (And do be selective if you have the option. It is worth the effort!)

Do Something Different

Someone with an established career rarely has the opportunity to try something completely different. That's what returning to school is all about, and I discovered that's what an internship can do as well. At my stage of career development, it's not about getting a foot in the door; it's about diversifying. For me, it meant working in a different industry—in this case, biotech and medical devices. It meant sitting in the sales and marketing department, rather than partnering with them. And it meant leading business plan development, rather than managing an existing business model and an established team.

Given a full range of roles to choose from, I might not have picked marketing. Historically in my consulting management roles, I developed close ties with sales and marketing functions, but I never reported into them. In hindsight, I wonder why I had not considered marketing, especially strategic planning, more seriously before this summer.

With this experience in mind, my best advice to first-year MBA students hunting for the perfect internship is this: Do something different with your summer. Target your search at roles that you do not intend to pursue after graduation. Diversify your portfolio. Will I ever sit in a marketing department again? Maybe, maybe not. But by doing something slightly outside of expectations, I have opened my options.

Learn Something About Yourself

About a month into my role as a strategic planner, I began to recognize a long-standing strength of mine for aligning strategies across functional areas. For a few years now, I have struggled with my elevator pitch, my 30-second response to "So, what do you do exactly?" Tough question to answer for someone who does not have a widely understood job title. By shifting perspective this summer, I finally was able to put it into words.

I realized that I had been too focused on where I sit in the org structure: "I specialize in ops management; no wait, it's project management. Or is it process improvement? Supply chain? Well, it's one of those things, I'm pretty sure." Hardly the right message to send. In my role this summer, I finally saw my blind spot. Forget my job function; that's temporary.