New intern

 Welcome Intern!

3 times a year my office gets a new intern: winter/spring, summer, fall/winter - our new intern arrived yesterday!

Since I only recently took over the duties of intern coordinator, this was my first intern that I flew (mostly) solo on.  Our intern process is fairly unconventional, like most internships in D.C. our office internship is unpaid.  We have gotten all of our recent interns from my Alma-matter University of Minnesota - Morris.  Because of this connection I have stepped in as the intern coordinator for our office.  It's exciting to talk to old professors but I also am recognizing that I'm getting older since I no longer recognize the names of the students they are offering me for the semesters.

One of the most fun aspects of the intern first day is guessing when they will arrive in the office.  I always tell the new intern to arrive at 10am - I've had interns arrive as early as 9:30am because they are either incredibly eager or nervous and don't want to screw anything up.  When I was an intern I showed up ridiculously early and made myself go and walk around the exhibits in the Jefferson Building for 30 minutes before I could head over to the Madison building a respectable 10 minutes early for my first day.

The intern showed up maybe 5-10 minutes early and I immediately got him settled into his desk.  Unfortunately we didn't have an internet ID set-up for him since our IT person was out of the office.  It also took us longer to get him a physical ID because of new regulations.  Other then those two hiccups the day was spent by tours of the Library and Capitol complex and introducing the intern to key personnel that he would either hear us talk about frequently or be working with on a weekly basis.

The end of the intern's first day also culminates in a sit-down discussion with my colleague, the old intern-coordinator.  Since I can not for the life of me remember what was said to me on my first day as an intern I sat in on the meeting and took notes so I could do the sit-down talk when our summer intern arrives.

Things we mentioned to our intern:

• Starting out the convresation asking if they have any questions after their first crash-course day, or if there are any problems
• Seeing if they are eligible for a metro transit subsidy - really the only type of compensation my office can offer
• Checking that the intern has good housing for the duration of their internship (making sure no one is just couch surfing for 4 months)
• Talking to them about their education and past experiences
• Asking what got them interested in the internship
• Listing the ways in which our internship is like a typical internship (answering phones, running errands, making copies) and then listing all the unique opportunities our internship provides (special displays, attending committee hears, events held at the Library)
• A reminder to the intern to make themselves memorable in a good way, especially since we have 3 interns a year and they tend to blend together after awhile
• Telling them to make sure they ask questions about anything and everything to make sure they get the most out of the experience
• Finally we ended with an explanation on personalities of a variety of people throughout the Library.  In my short work experience I have never really worked in a place with such a diverse set of working personalities.  I have frequently been working on a project for a group and for whatever reason the key players in the group all want the final product to look differently then their cohorts.  This just means that a flexible but positive attitude is key in really any industry.