Congratulations on Successfully Completing your Team-Based, Work-Experience, or Community-Serving Internship.

You have spent the last 14 weeks (about 3 months) on an intense work experience that will benefit you for the rest of your life. During these weeks you have learned to plan, organize, collaborate, negotiate, complete work related to your studies, synthesize information, develop multiple conclusions, find value maximizing recommendations and results, and present your results and valuable impact in a professional manner. You have accomplished all of this by:

1. Meeting as a project team/co-workers, defining roles, and scheduling regular meeting times.

2. Receiving a project from a company, reaching out to the sponsor, holding a kickoff meeting, identifying the real needs of the company, negotiating the decisions to be made or the actions to be taken, and defining the deliverables necessary to create impact and value for the company. Then documenting the agreement in a formal engagement letter.

3. Developing a rigorous work plan including an action register, deliverables, Gantt Chart, and assignments to team members to provide the deliverables on time. Then following the work plan and reporting completed tasks to the team members and the company sponsor by updating your progress in the work plan regularly.

4. Working on your own responsibilities to complete tasks related to your major and topics you have studied to increase your professional experience and try out the tools about which you have been studying.

5. Collaborating with your teammates/co-workers and trying to form a high-functioning team by eliminating dysfunctional attitudes and approaches.

6. Seeking to build a professional network by collaborating and creating professional relationships with your teammates,/co-workers, company sponsor, Mentor TA, instructor, other people at the sponsoring company, and industry experts found during the project.

7. Developing intermediate findings and preliminary recommendations at midterm and presenting them to the company sponsor. Reviewing your first half activities, projecting the activities for the second half, and negotiating changes to the final deliverables as needed with the company sponsor.

8. Team-Based projects: Providing peer review feedback to your teammates to help them develop professional characteristics that will benefit them throughout their life. You also received and reflected upon feedback from your company sponsor, teammates/coworkers, Mentor TA, and the instructor that will help you develop the characteristics you would like to have in your professional career.

9. Continuing to work on your assignments and deliverables while collaborating with your teammates/co-workers, your company sponsors, and other experts and stakeholders in your project.

10. Considering how this project could contribute to your future resume, and personal professional portfolio and in developing, nurturing, and expanding your professional network.

11. Working with your teammates/co-workers to collaborate on the activities the team would complete and the conclusions and recommendations they could create. You created multiple alternatives and found ways to analyze and find the value-maximizing activities and recommendations.

12. Developing a final report that includes the problem statement you were addressing and the activities and approaches you used to create the desired objectives of the company. You provided the data, analysis, conclusions, and recommendations that will create impact and value for the company. You included a robust appendix with the background data and research developed during the project. You created user guides where necessary to help the company utilize any tools created during the project and any activities that will be planned or recreated in the future.

13. Creating a professional top-down commercial decision-oriented final presentation and presenting it to your sponsoring company.

14. Receiving final feedback from your company sponsor and teammates/co-workers and reflecting on what you can do to improve the professional characteristics that you will take into your upcoming career.

15. Reflecting on how you have changed, what you accomplished, what impact you made, what value you created, and what you have learned. You created new bullet points for your resume and personal portfolio to represent what value you can bring to future employers.

Giving and Receiving Feedback

Throughout your internship, you have received feedback from multiple sources, and you have given feedback to your teammates/co-workers, TA Coordinator, and your instructor. Most of this giving and receiving of feedback was directed by your instructor and the course instructions and direction. Your instructor requires you to give and receive this feedback because they know how powerful feedback can be in helping you craft a professional career.

As you leave college you will need to seek feedback on your own to continue to gain the benefit and continue to craft your professional characteristics. As you take on future projects during your professional career, we encourage you to come back to review this textbook and follow the processes for completing a successful project and creating additional career-enhancing improvements.

There are no guarantees that you will always be able to stay in the job you will start with after college. There is always the possibility that your position will be discontinued, your company will downsize, or your job could become obsolete. While you cannot be guaranteed that an individual job will always be there, you can guarantee that you will always be able to find and gain a professional job and career. An important way to create this guarantee is to:

• Become a trusted and capable disciple of Jesus Christ 

• Constantly continue to learn and grow within your profession 

• Develop teamwork skills 

• Build a collaboration mindset

• Lead and participate on high-functioning teams

• Give and receive valuable feedback

• Develop and nurture a professional network

• Provide high-impact value-creating results

After you leave school, you will need to be proactive in giving and receiving feedback in your professional network. The processes and approaches outlined in this textbook can be extremely helpful throughout your career in completing successful projects and enhancing your professional network and resume/portfolio. 

Final Reflections at the End of Every Project

You will participate in many projects throughout your career. It is best practice to pause and take a moment to reflect on what you have accomplished, what impact you made or value you created, and what you have learned that you can utilize to enhance your career.

The final reflection for this book is to answer each of the following questions:

• How are you different because of this internship?

• What are some things you have accomplished during your internship project?

• What are some things you have learned?

• What kind of impact will or did your activities have on your project and your sponsor's organization? What value did you create? 

It is also a wonderful time at the end of every project to add a section to your resume, CV, or professional portfolio for this internship. Add one to three bullet points to your resume, CV, or professional portfolio using the “Good, Better, Best Power Statements”. Try and upgrade as many bullets as possible to the Better and Best statements to add value to your resume. 

• Good “Provided excellent customer service.” This statement describes what task you did. While it supports that you have customer service experience, it lacks connections to your skills. 

•  Better “Provided excellent customer service by listening successfully to serve customers.” This statement describes how you did it (can include soft and hard skills and includes a desirable outcome.)

• Best “Provided excellent customer service by listening and responding to customer needs and diffusing tension during rush time, increasing customer service ratings by 50%.” This statement encompasses the positive aspects of the two previous examples. It also explains what results and a quantified desirable outcome occurred because of your performance. The “best” power statements are the most difficult to write because they require you to quantify your work. You may need to reach out to others to understand the impact of your results. However, measuring results and reporting them will greatly enhance your attractiveness to future employers.

While updating your resume and professional portfolio will have long-term value for your career, there are more immediate opportunities to benefit you by capturing these reflections. When you are in your professional career, and you finish a project it would be good practice to draft a version of the reflection questions above and supply it to your supervisor. This will let them know what you accomplished and the benefit you provided to the company. It also shows them how you are growing in your career and may help them in identifying future opportunities for you in your company or organization.

Not all work you do in your career is project-based. There will be many tasks and responsibilities that will be associated with your day-to-day work. It would be good to do the same reflections above on a monthly or quarterly basis and submit to your supervisor whether they requested it or not. One employee made a habit of providing monthly reflections like the above to their supervisor (unrequested) as a best practice for their career. One month they forgot to submit the monthly reflection update and their supervisor came to them and said they would like to receive the reflection for this month. The supervisor had come to rely on the monthly update to know what was going on, and for them to create a similar reflection for their management. Although the reflection report was not required, it was highly valued by the employees' management. And as you might expect it led to future promotions, ending in top leadership in their company and profession.

Please Give Back as a Project Sponsor or Mentor

You've completed your internship, and hopefully, it has been a wonderful experience for you. Now, it's time to leverage your accomplishments and learnings to obtain a starting position in your new profession. As you move forward, use the processes and practices in this book to continue having successful projects in your professional career.

As you progress, consider giving back to your school as an alumnus. Your career may present opportunities to hire interns, bring on new employees, or provide projects to your school, allowing students to have experiences similar to yours. You can also become a mentor to students from your school, offering guidance and support as a way to give back to your alma mater.

Good luck in completing your school experience and in building a successful career.