As a summer intern at roux, I am excited to be able to share a little bit about this great opportunity. To give a little bit of background, I am an undergraduate marketing major soon to be going into my senior year of college at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. The opportunity was presented to me through Karen Hall, whom I had previously met, and a couple times she said to me “If you ever want to do an internship, let me know!” So, when I finished my sophomore year of college and realized I needed to start getting exposure to “the real world,” I decided to take her up on that offer.
Of course, the media and the movies make being an intern seem like such exciting and satisfying work. They give the impression that, as an intern, you’ll be overwhelmingly busy getting people coffee, sorting mail, or running errands all while making a world-changing impact by thinking outside of the box and pushing the boundaries of social norms. However, as usual, movie and media depictions of reality are far from realistic, and when it comes to a smaller business internship, the movies are even more misleading.
However, even knowing the misconceptions that are formed because of media and movies, I still managed to form an unrealistic idea in my head of what my internship would look like. I imagined myself in the cookie cutter office setting with a specific job title and tasks to do each day. I expected it to be more like a college classroom setting – with someone teaching me how to do the work and then having assignments to complete. I know, to those of you who have ever had an internship or a “real job” that seems naïve to expect, but that was what I was used to – who could blame me?
To say the least, the first week of the internship was very disorienting for me because of those expectations. I learned very quickly that, as an intern, day to day tasks will never be quite consistent, which was a big adjustment for me since I have a relatively strong type A personality. However, I also learned that the environment of roux is more like that of a family than a business. In my first few days and weeks, they not only greeted me with big smiles and lots of encouragement but also answered my many questions gladly rather than leaving me to figure out the answers on my own. Furthermore, they even gave me a personality test before I officially started in order to find out with whom and how I could work best – it also revealed some tendencies, needs, preferred environments, and effective strategies for my perfectionist personality. Needless to say, I could have never expected the team at roux to be as involved, gracious, and accepting as they were.
In my time so far with roux, the biggest takeaway I have discovered is to always be observant. As a twenty-one year old, I am well aware that my generation is becoming more and more dependent socially on technology and social media, and while those things are important in an evolving business world, the foundation of business begins with communication. As a person who is not naturally socially skilled, being observant of my coworkers and their interactions with each other and clients is an invaluable aspect of any internship experience. Learning small talk and neutral jokes, how to give off a pleasant vibe, and keeping up with important events in order to not look ignorant can be complete game changers. Such skills are becoming a dying art in my generation, which is why I believe it is the most important skill to observe as an intern at an agency built on communication.
To conclude, it would take countless words to explain my time with roux and all of the things I am learning from interning with these wonderful people. They reworked and exceeded my expectations while showing me more love and acceptance than I could have anticipated, which I believe is part of the reason that roux is so good at what they do, and I could not feel more blessed to be a part of this team.
