Student Blog: My Summer Interior Architecture Internship

As a college student, every aspect of training to become an accomplished interior designer seems quite exciting. From late night study sessions to handling in projects, the various steps that form an integral part of the best interior design courses in India, take one forward in the direction of becoming a competent professional. However the true test of my knowledge and learning in the field took place when I was offered a summer internship at a renowned architecture firm.

Seemingly, someone from the firm was impressed by my project and considered me competent enough to work with their esteemed organisation. I felt really honoured and excited at the prospect of being able to apply my skills and knowledge in realistic work environment.

An Opportunity for Growth

This being my first internship, I was really not sure about what to expect. Some of my friends and well wishers encouraged me and taught me to take it as an opportunity to enhance my skills further while also establishing my basic career objectives. But there were others, who warned me about the abuse of talent that such opportunities usually led to and why taking up the offer was going to be a waste of time.

However, since the internship offered me a unique opportunity to verify the practical applicability of all that I had learned while studying Bachelor of Interior Design, I was all set to face whatever challenges i met during this practical training.  I am glad to say that almost all my fears proved pointless and the internship actually helped to refine my skills as a professional interior designer.

Important Lessons That My Internship Taught Me

My internship proved to be much more than just an opportunity to work in a real professional environment. It was more an extended learning session that taught me important lessons about my profession and life in general. Discussed below are some of these important lessons that not even the best interior design colleges in India can teach their students without exposing them to the practical work environment.

• Get Involved To Gain Experience

The first and the most important lesson that I learnt is that it is important to take initiative. As an intern, I often found myself feeling unconfident to provide inputs or suggestion about projects and design aspects, despite having ample knowledge and understanding. I believed that my inexperience would make my views seem useless and invaluable. Thankfully, I soon learned that in order to gain experience, I need to expose my skills to land the right opportunities. So I sought every opportunity that enabled me to showcase my talent even if on a minimalistic level and get noticed.

• Don’t Carry The Intern Mindset

One of the things that hinder the growth of any intern is carrying around the “intern mindset” as it limits them from exploiting their full potential. Although I was suffering from this mindset at the beginning of my internship, my peers awakened me to its dangerous consequences. They explained to me that as an intern I was bringing a fresh perspective to the team and that I could help to provide valuable inputs to enhance the overall value of a project. This knowledge helped me understand that even I could make a meaningful contribution towards completing a project and this thought helped to grow as a professional.

• Know Your Strengths And Drawbacks

The key to ensuring success in any field is to be aware of your strengths and drawbacks and be able to acknowledge them openly. This is essential to ensure that you are assigned projects with realistic expectations. Overstating your skills tends to land you in trouble while handling complex projects. On the other hand, having clarified your shortcomings makes it easier for you to vocalize your concerns about something you are not sure about. It will also clear the path for learning through experiences. This vital lesson enables me to overcome various challenges and create a lasting impression by under-promising and over-delivering to my clients.

• Never Shy Away From Asking Questions

Asking questions is a good thing and reflects your curiosity to learn besides helping to clarify any miscommunications and misunderstandings. However the questioning should not be done in a manner that makes you seem incapable of working independently as it can reflect poorly on you as a professional. My approach to questioning was to work until I could not proceed without getting some answers. Then I would simply compile a list of all the queries I needed to get answers and approach the best person for resolving the same. I also too great care to ensure that my questions never strayed from the matter at hand or were not ones that i could not find answers to by doing a little research on my own.

My first summer internship proved to be extremely enriching and exciting, as working with some of the best minds in the field laid a lasting impression on me as a budding professional.