Navigating Early Career: How to Make the Most Out of Your Internship
Being an intern is a more powerful position than you think. Instead of treating it as a line on your resume, treat it as one of the best chances you'll get to learn as much as you possibly can.
I was given a high-impact project during mine, and I learned a lot from it, which honestly caught me off guard, since that's not always how it goes. Besides your direct work, there are more opportunities to learn than interns realize. You just have to go looking for them.
Use being an intern to your advantage.
I made more mistakes and was bolder with my decision-making, simply because I could. As an intern, there's less pressure on you to perform than there is on a full-time employee. As long as I learned from my mistakes, showed growth, and didn't repeat them, I was able to learn in a real professional environment without the consequences I would get later in my career.
A big part of actually learning from those mistakes was keeping track of them along the way. I took notes on the work I did, kept a running list of my tasks, and wrote down reflections on what I learned, how I could do better, and the feedback I received. It's a list I still go back to today.
Learn from your peers.
Talk to interns on other teams to learn about the work they're doing. Mine wasn't product-facing, so chatting it up with other interns became a great way to learn about other parts of my field. I was on ads, but there were plenty of other teams I was curious about. I also picked up a lot from interns outside my field entirely, like product design and graphic design. Those conversations taught me about what the company does as a whole.
Schedule coffee chats.
The worst they can say is no! Scheduling coffee chats with employees, and networking within the company itself, helped me figure out the work culture. Talking to people who were more removed from my day-to-day work gave me more honest answers about the culture, and helped me figure out if it was actually the right fit for me.
Use this to learn what you actually want to do.
There happened to be two hackathons while I was there, and I participated in both. They gave me the chance to work on projects outside my own team's responsibility, things that had nothing to do with my day-to-day work in ads, which let me explore what actually interested me. It also gave my work and contributions real visibility, just by showing up and getting involved.
I did something similar with my own project. At one point, part of it was about to get cut because of timeline issues. I really wanted to learn that part of the development process, so I asked my mentor to let me take it on, and he was happy to give me the time to learn what I wanted. Showing enthusiasm for my work is how I got the opportunity to work on something I actually cared about.
Be a sponge.
I was a sponge, soaking up as much knowledge as I could, not just from my work, but from my environment too.
Because in the end, an internship is what you make of it: the projects you raise your hand for, the people you take the time to know, and the curiosity you bring to every corner of the experience. Go looking for everything it has to offer, and you'll walk away with far more than a line on your resume.
About Avni Mohan
Avni Mohan is a 2026 AdaMarie Fellow, AI Engineer Intern, and emerging technologist whose work sits at the intersection of machine learning, data science, and real-world problem solving. With a background in computer science and early experience in genomic research, she is building a career that moves fluidly between data science, consulting, and research — driven by a curiosity about how technology can create meaningful impact beyond the lab.
