Starting an internship can feel overwhelming with all the new skills and relationships you’re expected to manage.
To help you navigate your internship successfully, here are some tips from four USC students, Holly, Jayla, Melissa, and Renee, who’ve interned at companies including KPMG, HP, LA Mayor’s Office, Fox Entertainment, and EY Parthenon.
1. Prepare For Day One
First impressions matter, and the panelists agreed that preparation goes well beyond knowing your job description.
On the logistical side: lay out your outfit the night before, plan your commute, and give yourself a buffer. These small things reduce anxiety and help you walk in feeling confident.
On the professional side: research the company’s history, brush up on technical skills you’ll need (Excel came up more than once), and look up the people you’ll be working with on LinkedIn.
Preparing thoughtful questions for your managers before you arrive also signals curiosity and initiative, which tends to make a strong early impression.
⭐️ Renee’s advice: Doing my due diligence really helps take away those first-day nerves, for sure.
2. Build Your Network Intentionally
Every panelist pointed to relationship-building as one of the most important things you can do early on in an internship.
Schedule one-on-one coffee chats. A group intro call with your team is nice, but it rarely leads to real connection. Reach out individually to team members at all levels including associates who are just a year or two ahead of you and fellow interns.
Adapt for virtual or distributed teams. If your team is remote or spread across time zones, be especially intentional: schedule introductory calls in your first week, be mindful of time zone differences, and make sure people know your name and role before you need anything from them.
Keep a spreadsheet. Track names, roles, conversation notes, and follow-up tasks so no connection slips through the cracks. Remember to connect with people on LinkedIn to stay connected after your role ends.
💡 Holly’s advice: Ask every person you meet to recommend two or three others to connect with. You’ll never run out of people to talk to.
3. Make Your Work Visible
In a busy workplace, it is important to keep track of all your work and show that you make a positive impact on the organization.
Keep a running log of everything you do. One panelist learned this tip from a fellow intern on day one: write down every task, project, and contribution as you go. After nine weeks, it’s easy to forget what you accomplished early on. This list becomes invaluable when it’s time for a performance review or return-offer conversations.
Be proactive. Volunteer for things outside your job description. Ask to sit in on meetings. If you finish a project early, ask for feedback before moving on. In environments where processes aren’t fully established (common in nonprofits and government), create transition documents or how-to guides that outlast your time there.
Show up consistently. Delivering work on time, being organized, and demonstrating that you genuinely care about the outcome of your projects signals effort more than any single impressive deliverable.
⭐️ Jayla’s advice: In all the meetings that I had with my managers, I would ask questions in terms of how I can improve or how could this have been done better or things of that sort, just to make sure that I’m on track.
4. Navigating Return Offers
For those in corporate internships, the return-offer question looms large. The panelists were candid: it can feel like a black box, and the anxiety is normal.
Their advice: communicate openly with your manager and recruiter about what you need to be doing to perform well. Don’t wait until the end of the summer to ask. Mid-summer check-ins are a good natural moment to calibrate.
But just as importantly, remember that you’re evaluating them too. Think of your internship as a two way, three month interview. Is this a culture you’d want to work in long-term? Do the projects excite you?
💡 Melissa’s advice: Make sure the work you do works within your values, not just theirs.
5. Be Open Minded
The last piece of advice from every panelist came down to the same idea: stay open.
Don’t limit yourself to what fits your major or your original plan. Don’t be afraid to mess up. Internships are the time to try things, fail safely, and learn from your mistakes.
You’re in the room for a reason. Make the most of it!
This post is based on our Internships 101: Making the Most of Your Internship series, featuring students Melissa Paz-Flores, Holly Anderson, Jayla Eloy, and Renee Torres. Watch the full panel on YouTube.
