1. Go to staff lunches
In addition to the fact that free food is free food (and usually better than the stale sandwich you brought from home), this is your chance to get to know your coworkers.
For example, at our first staff bagel breakfast we learned that one of our Research Associates was an extra in Magic Mike. If I hadn't gone to that breakfast, I never would have learned that a celebrity was in our midst.
Besides being a good way to make friends at work, attending these lunches is part of the activity every intern fears and dreads: networking. It turns out that networking is code for getting to know people, and it can involve donuts.
During my summer internship the staff ate lunch together every Wednesday, which meant we all got to take an hour off work and sit in fancy conference room chairs while talking about Pokemon Go. Networking isn't so bad, is it?
2. Keep yourself busy
There's nothing worse than sitting at a desk and trying to look busy for hours while you have nothing to do. Sometimes it's really a slow day at the office, but often there's work to be done and people just don't realize you're free. So don't be afraid to ask around and see if anyone wants your help.
For the times when there's genuinely nothing to do, the best solution is to start up your own project. Maybe you noticed that the internship guidebook could use some updates, or you think you could write a killer article on one of the topics you've been working on. Whatever it may be, don't be afraid to propose your own projects, or just create it on your own and present the product to your supervisor.
At KRC, my saving grace on slow days was that I was helping out with their social media. It gave me an ongoing project that killed as much time as I needed when I had breaks in my other project work, and I could always take up more time by brainstorming new strategies.
3. Tell them what you want
Take some advice from The Spice Girls and tell your employers what you want to get out of your internship experience. No matter how dedicated your supervisor(s) may be to teaching you as much as possible, they are busy people, and they might not notice that you're not getting what you want out of your program until you reach out to them. They're also not mind readers. Ultimately this is about your own career development, and you can take ownership of the skills you want to develop.
At KRC, we were asked about our goals at the beginning of the internship. But what was extra helpful was being asked in the middle of the internship as well, when we were able to remind ourselves and our supervisors about what we wanted out of the program.
4. Get feedback
How can you learn and improve if you have no idea how you're doing? In the end, the point of an internship is to become better at what you do. Even if this isn't your career path of choice, feedback can still help you become a better employee. Not everyone thinks to give feedback or is comfortable constantly throwing it at you, so just ask!
I told my supervisor during the first week of the summer that feedback was important to me, and he responded ideally: by setting up bi-weekly coffee meetings for us to discuss the internship and give feedback. These meetings were really helpful, because they allowed us both to keep the internship educational and on track.
5. Go outside during your lunch break
I didn't do this. At all. And this is what I look like now.
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