Final weeks…

Hello!

How are you doing? So far I'm doing well, but I'm approaching the end of my internship… well I still have a good 3 weeks or so. This last weeks are going to be very busy because I need to wrap up my projects, speed up the networking and prepare for moving back to Ann Arbor!.

The most urgent thing for me right now is to finish my final presentation of my core project. I want to finish it as soon as possible so I can concentrate my last days into networking in order to leave a fresh image of me into the organization. Actually I think that today I'll share a couple of recommendations that I believe are working well for me:

1. For your final presentation "Tell everybody what you are going to tell to them". Usually I like to share my thoughts on the project to my manager and other stakeholders, actually this is something most people do, but I like to take it one step further. I like to present and discuss the final presentation structure, drafts, etc. with each one of the stakeholders I'll have to present at the end of the project. I know that this kills the surprise and a lot of the wow factor of all the work you have done because by the final presentation they already know all the story… but well, you know what people says: Nobody likes surprises!. And certainly you don't want surprises in your final presentations, so is better to talk to all your audience before the real final presentation in order to get their feedback and have it covered in the final product.
   

   
   

2. As important as the work is… is not everything!. Delivering a great output from your internship work is just half of the battle. You need to create relationships within the company, meet all the people you can and try to know better the company. If you only focus on getting your job done, no matter how good it is, people is going to see it and say "yes that was done by that intern that used to sit in the cubicle at the back" and certainly you don't want that. You would want people to remember your name, have some stories to tell about you and consider you for a full time offer. So one of this days dropping the Excel and going to have lunch with your manager or the guy next cubicle can be a good idea.
   

You may be wondering if I actually follow my own advice… and I can say… more or less, yes, hehe. This week I have a dry run of my final presentation with most of my stakeholders (3 weeks before final presentation) and certainly once I have figured out the final structure I'll go more aggressive in the networking side of the equation. So I'll keep you all posted of hows everything going once I get closer to my last day, for now I think I need to go back to PowerPoint. See you later!