Lessons learned as a software intern during a pandemic
Tags: career, internship
Published: 2020-08-01 21:53:35

Interning is tough enough even when there isn’t a pandemic. I feel for every person who has had to stress over the well-being of their loved ones or worry a lot for their own health and safety. I’ve been extremely fortunate in that my level of pandemic-related stress has probably been average, or maybe even below-average.

I just want to say that for anyone who has had to deal with a high amount of stress because of this pandemic, or any reason really, you’re not alone and it’s okay if you feel like you aren’t excelling as much as you would under regular circumstances. I’ve dealt with stressful situations and I know that sometimes just getting through the work day or school day is an accomplishment in itself. It’s hard to give it your all when you’re already dealing with so much as it is.

I've been lucky to be able to spend time this summer focusing a lot on my internship, and what I want in my career. I'm lucky to have had a strong support system to help me as I navigated my virtual internship too.

Everyone who helps run the summer internship program at Cerner has been absolutely amazing and gone out of their way to help everyone succeed. They provided guidance and helped us all navigate our virtual internships.

I also had a ton of support from my team, other associates at Cerner, and some wonderful friends. They know who they are and I will be forever grateful to each of them.

At the end of the day, I think having a strong support system and others who can help guide you is one of the best things for your career or any other major endeavor.

Being an intern in a virtual setting has really made it clear to me that my career is truly in my own hands. Even from the first day of work, it was clear.

It was up to me to login and figure out how to set everything up so that I could make it to that first day of training. Once I had my first real task to do, it was on me to get it done.

That’s true even under regular circumstances. But when you’re alone in a room all day, it feels more apparent. There was no one to physically stop by my desk and check in with me.

If anything, I think working remotely made me even more determined to do well. The last thing I wanted was for anyone to think that I wasn’t giving it my best effort.

If people couldn’t physically observe me working, then I needed to make sure that they saw it in the work I was pushing out.

I think success is something that looks different for everyone. What you want to prioritize is up to you and can change over time, and that’s the real beauty of it. For me, I’ve been studying for years to become a software engineer and I’m beyond excited to be so close to reaching that goal. With this being my final internship and only one more semester to go, I’ve felt easily motivated and eager to make as much progress as I reasonably can.

For me, my focus is currently on my career. And I've been lucky to have a ton of inspirational people to learn from at this internship, including other interns. I’ve seen people accomplish some amazing things this summer, and it has definitely inspired me.

Being committed to doing good work and finding ways to make valuable contributions helps everyone, including yourself.

Everyone make mistakes sometimes. I know I did. But I think at the end of the day, if you're putting in effort, have a positive attitude, and can learn from those mistakes, you'll do great.

All that said, it was also critical to know when to take a break and prevent burnout. It’s easy to lose track of time when there’s no physical disconnect between work and personal life. Living in a small apartment also meant that I couldn’t have a whole room dedicated to doing just work.

I also learned that I actually feel better when I can move around occasionally. Whether it was doing some work on the couch or sitting outside when the weather was nice, sometimes a change of scenery was surprisingly helpful.

Working remotely has its perks. There’s no commute. That’s the best perk in my mind. I’ve saved an impressive amount of time and money by not having to drive to and from work each day.

It also has some pitfalls to avoid. Like making sure you aren’t all alone when you’re working. It’s easy to just spend the day doing work and going to meetings, but not talking to anyone outside of that.

Normally you could walk down a hallway or step into the break room and talk with people. Or stop by someone’s desk to have a quick chat. That just isn’t a thing in remote work.

It was also important to keep in mind that this was not the typical situation for remote work.

Working remotely during a pandemic is not going to feel the same as it would under regular circumstances. So keeping an eye on how I was feeling and making sure I was doing okay was crucial.

I learned how to reach out to people. Whether it was a teammate, a fellow intern friend, or someone else I’d met virtually. It could be about work, or maybe we would just catch up for a bit. It was nice to just chat occasionally, like you would if you were working in the same building.

One of the best things the summer internship program involved was the Friday “lunch roulettes”. Every Friday we were assigned a new group and we could meet up to get virtual lunch together.

I was able to meet lots and lots of other interns this way, and it was a blast. I even met with a few interns on other days of the week to do our own lunch get-togethers, and it was awesome.

I also met a lot of people just through virtual chatting and through special events, like at the ShipIt hackathon and the DevCon conference.

I wasn’t sure if I would make any friends in a remote setting like this, but I was pleasantly surprised to meet a lot of great people who I hope to stay in touch with even after the internship is over.

I'm grateful to have had an internship at all this summer, and I'm especially glad that it was with Cerner. Making healthcare better is something that I find extremely meaningful, and I'm proud to have made some contributions to that through this virtual internship.

Tomorrow is my last day, and even though everyone warned me it would go by fast, I’m still shocked. It may have gone by fast, but I’ve learned a great deal. I don’t know exactly what my final semester of classes will look like, or how long I’ll continue to do work remotely. But I know that this internship has made me more than prepared to adapt and take on whatever comes next.

This article was originally published on my personal website's blog, [Joy Bytes](https://www.compscilauren.com/blog/lessons-learned-as-a-software-intern-during-a-pandemic).