Megan Bliss

5/24/2023
My Internship Experience That Did Not TERN Out as Expected

I spent my 2023 Spring semester interning for Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Eastern

Shore. It wasn’t always smooth sailing, but it ended up being a memorable experience. I worked

with people I will never forget and gained experience to help me with my future career

endeavors. Through this internship, I got an in-depth look into how a nonprofit works behind the

scenes. This experience has taught me about myself, how to deal with disagreements in the

workplace, how to persevere when you want to give up, and not everything you try you have to

continue doing for the rest of your life. Let’s start from the beginning and look at the entire

journey of my internship experience.

I am going to be honest throughout this paper. I did not want an internship. I feel like

most people do not want internships, but I really, really did not want one. My plan was to study

abroad, but my bank account had other plans for me. It wasn’t until a couple of days before the

internship deadline that I reached out to my internship director (Professor Burns), saying that I

had screwed up and had three days to figure out an internship. Instead of emailing back and

forth, he opted for a phone call because he stated: “time is of the essence.” Over the phone, I

blatantly told him I do not want an internship where I work for some business and do their dirty

work. I didn’t want to work for the “big man” (like a corporation or something) and be one of

their useless little pawns in a big business game. I also could not bear the concept of working for

free. Anyways, over this time-sensitive phone call, I explained to him about how I wanted to do

something good. I know that sounds cheesy, but if I am forced to work, I might as well work for

something that is actually beneficial to people. I told the internship director, David Burns, that

even though I am completely uninterested in free labor, maybe I could work for a nonprofit or

some kind of charity. Someone who could benefit from the fruits of my labor. After the call, he

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emailed me a list of nonprofits in the area that students from Salisbury University have interned

for before. I reached out to all of them, and whoever got back to me soonest and by the deadline

was going to be my home for the semester.

A couple of places got back to me, but Jessica Mimms, the Executive Director for Big

Brothers Big Sisters of the Eastern Shore, got back to me quickly and even offered me an

interview that same day over the phone. I jumped on it, and the interview went okay on my end

but nothing spectacular about my performance. She ended the interview by saying I seemed like

a good fit, and then I began filling out the paperwork. Soon after, I sent her the filled-in

paperwork and got ghosted. Another day went by, no response. Burns and I were equally stressed

with the fast-approaching deadline, so he prompted me to call her. I called the office and got a

hold of Ms. Mimms. I asked her if she could fill out the paperwork when she had a chance and

told her I needed it by 9am the next day. She then said, “I am too busy, and that can’t be done”

and the call ended there. I was in shock. There was no time to find another internship, all hope

was lost. As a last resort, I emailed Ms. Mimms that if she could just fill out the paperwork by

the end of the week, that would be great and I thanked her for previously considering me for the

position. I emailed Burns that I lost the internship battle and that I have been defeated.

Two days later, I am sitting in my statistics class, and I get a couple phone calls, all from the

same unsaved number. I peek at my phone and see that there is a voicemail, it is Professor Burns.

I called him back right then and there in the middle of the classroom, and he said Jessica Mimms

sent over the paperwork and he extended the deadline until 4 that day for me to sign up for the

class and finish my portion of the paperwork. My class ended at 3:50, I felt like I was in an

action movie. There was a hold on my account, so I had to run to the cashier’s office to pay my

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past due balance (parking ticket). Then I was able to sign up for the class, and it was all

completed at 3:59, no joke. It happened, Megan Bliss became an intern.

Ms. Mimms and I previously emailed when my start date would be, the first Tuesday of

my semester, January 31st. The hours we initially discussed were Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2-7. I

told her several times that 10 hours a week was not enough for me to reach 180 hours, but she

insisted that she had “never had an intern not reach their hours,” and honestly, I had no other

option but to believe her.

January 31st rolls around, a cold rainy day. I had class from 11-12:15 and then from

12:30-1:45, so I had to change into my business casual outfit in the girl’s bathroom immediately

after my second class. I wanted to look professional on my first day and make a good

impression. Needless to say, the business casual outfits did not last for long when I realized no

one dressed up in the office. Anyways, I rushed into my car, the time read 1:53. I raced to a large

building that was my destination according to Apple Maps. I ran around downtown Salisbury in

the rain in search of the office for about 15 minutes. I checked my phone email to ensure I

arrived at the right building according to the address I was sent. I saw I got a new email just sent

to me from Ms.Mimms that said, “So, when is your first day going to be?” My stomach hit the

ground as I finally found a sign that said BBBSES. I figured it was too late to turn around now,

so I pressed this little button to be buzzed into the building. I was let into this large and dated

building. Here I am, unexpectedly showing up on what I thought was supposed to be my first

day, and I look like a little soggy sewer rat. My internship director had a meeting, so I sat with

one of my coworkers, Li-Ann, and filled out paperwork. We loved Li-ann. I finally met with

Jessica, and we began with a debriefing about Canva, a website where you can create social

media posts or flyers for things of that nature. Little did I know that the majority of my life

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would be spent behind a laptop creating posts and presentations on that site. I had to watch a

bunch of tutorials and read over the branding rules because I had no clue what I was doing on my

first day. I was rushed into creating a post for that day and it was so hideous, but for a first timer

it did the job. This is the day I started my 180-hour journey, mainly on Canva.

I created around 50 posts. I also created three presentations, including around 229

individual slides, with audio clips to go along each slide. I would say I am pretty Canva literate.

This is a skill I am confident in by the end of my internship, and I am glad I will be able to use

this tool in the future. Don’t get me wrong, I did some things other than social media, but 90% of

my work was social media. I got trained to do reference calls, which I never ended up making. I

was trained (basically just shown an example) of a volunteer assessment. These are basically

translating an interview and answers to interview questions for potential Bigs into an essay

format. Bigs are the adults who volunteer to be a role model to a child in the mentorship

program. I spent one day doing these volunteer assessments, but that ended up being a one time

only kind of deal.

I would not call it a new skill that I have developed, but I did further develop my craft of

dealing with workplace issues. That might sound a little vague, so let me explain. There were

many times I had issues with my hours not being met, technology problems, or just me having

questions regarding what I am doing at the moment. Sometimes, I felt like it was easier to suffer

in silence than ask for help. The workplace environment that was created was unapproachable,

and most times, when there was a problem, I was blamed for the issue. I felt like if I was unsure

of what to do, at a given time, it would be made out like I had a lack of competence when in

reality there was a lack of direction and guidance in the first place. For example, I got in the

habit of using another staff member’s computer because the other intern tended to use the

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designated intern laptop. This coworker’s computer was always just logged on when I arrived in

the morning, so I always just started using the computer from his account. One morning, he

ended up signing out at the end of his day, so when I came in, the computer was locked. The

problem is I was never given the password. I had no choice but to ask for help and instead of

getting assistance, I was told it was all my fault. I was told the password had been given to me

(untrue) and how I irresponsibly lost it and now I caused a breach of security. I was told that the

particular staff member always signs out of his computer, so I must’ve been logging in all along

(which wasn’t the case). All of my belongings were ripped through in search for a password that

was never in my possession in the first place. I was portrayed to be a liar and I felt guilty for an

issue I had no part in creating. I could go on and on about this incident, but it is one of many

times I felt very inferior and worthless. I never spoke up for myself. Whenever I would try to

defend myself, it made matters worse, so there was no point.

I took a lot of the earlier negative confrontations very personally. It kind of affected my

mental health for that period of time when I let this place wear me down. It upset me because no

matter how hard I was trying and walking around on eggshells, I never got a “thank you” or

“good job today,” until later on in my internship. I felt undervalued and overworked. It made me

rethink the entire path I saw myself going toward. See, I was undecided for the first two years at

Salisbury. It wasn’t until I was forced to declare a major that I landed on Psychology, with a

Communications minor. I ended up flip flopping those, making Communications my major. Still

with no plan of a career, I trekked on. I finally stumbled across nonprofit work at the beginning

of my senior year and I thought “this is it.” I wanted to help people and make a living at the same

time, so it just seemed like a great fit. I put all my eggs into this basket, interning for this

nonprofit and even taking a nonprofit course through Salisbury University to become nonprofit

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certified. To get such negative criticism all the time and end up despising going into my

internship made me devastated about my future career goals. On top of all of that, I was on track

to come up extremely short on my hours, and I am working for free. All of these factors ruined

the beginning of this semester for me. Still, I kept my head down and kept showing up for my

scheduled shifts.

One of my friends had a bad experience at her internship the semester before. She went

through some similar crises with her internship and career identity dilemmas. I sat down one

night and we talked until 4am about life after college and stuff because we’ve been friends since

the beginning of freshman year. She drilled in my head to stop letting all of these workplace

issues affect me so personally and to just brush it off and move on. She said she thought her

internship was going to be the line of work she was going in, but she realized it’s a good thing

she had the internship to show her what she didn’t want to do. That is a hard pill to swallow, but

she was right. Even though she wasn’t dealing with the same kind of passive aggressiveness (or

just straight up aggressiveness) like I was dealing with. She emphasized to me not to let her

words weigh me down, and from this talk and other talks with my friends, my outlook began to

shift.

Once I stopped letting the workplace comments have power over me, I was more

unfazed. I started to be more firm and not back down when discussing the hours I needed to

graduate, so she started to let me come in more. When she was rude to me, I started brushing it

off and carried on with my day. She actually began to be nicer to me the second half of the

semester, actually thanking me for the work I was doing and telling me to have a good weekend

and such. She ended up being pleasant to work with. I don’t know how the sudden shift occurred

with her, but I loved it.

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It may seem out of the ordinary to start a paper with such a lengthy back story and then to lead

into some brief negative rants, but it will be relevant with the flow of this paper. It took me a

while to come to the realization that what happens in the workplace does not need to affect me

personally and negatively outside of the workplace. To realize that I am not destined and locked

down to this kind of work for the rest of my life. To just keep my head down, find the positive,

and know my worth.

We ended up getting along great. I cannot remember when the ice got broken, I think it

was a more gradual kind of relationship building. We had a handful of positive conversations

about weekend plans or shows we were watching on Netflix. It wasn’t too often, but every

opportunity presented to me to have a below surface conversation I jumped on it. I enjoyed

working with many people at my internship, and eventually I enjoyed working with who I was

interning for. Some of my coworkers I liked were Li-Ann, obviously, and I enjoyed working with

other coworkers, even though I saw them less frequently such as Tyler, Nyisha, and Nicole.

Li-Ann was the star of the show and made the environment welcoming. She also helped me in

my journey through navigating this whole nonprofit life.

One time, me and Li-Ann were having a conversation about working in the nonprofit

sector. I was talking to her about my nonprofit class, and how my professor talks about the wage

not always being the best for some. Li-Ann nodded, and said how people who work in her

position make around 70,000 a year. Mentally, I said “sign me up, that’s not too shabby.” Li-Ann

continued on by saying how people in her position and doing her line of work make that money

in for profit organizations. For a nonprofit, she said people make half that, about 35,000 a year.

Honestly, I am glad Li-Ann gave it to me straight. At that moment I remember thinking to myself

“I am so glad I decided not to go into this line of work.” That sounds bad, and I know a majority

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of this paper sounds bad, but this paper is about my experience, so that is what I am going to

share.

This internship helped me with my communication skills, some that might not be

commonly taught in class. It helped me communicate effectively in the workplace, even with

disagreements. With my work on Canva, it taught me just how important communication can be

for an organization on social media. I ultimately learned that this path is not for me. I cannot find

myself sitting behind a desk from 9-5 typing my time away. I found myself taking walks up and

down the hallway just to stretch my legs. It was draining sitting and staring at a screen. My butt

would get sore and my eyes burned. There were also no windows where I worked so that further

led to my disconnect from reality and added to the depressing atmosphere. I would leave the

office after what felt like an eternity just to go home and lay around trying to recuperate the

remainder of my day and usually failing.

However, I am proud that I did not give up and try to change my internship, even though

that thought crossed my mind in the first month or two. I am proud of myself for sticking with

what I started and showing up for myself. I am proud I never skipped, even though some

mornings I really couldn’t pry myself from my bed. On the other hand, I am not too proud of

myself for how I beat myself up day in and day out for the feedback I received. Looking back, I

wish I wouldn’t have let myself get so down in the dumps. But, I am glad I let myself sink down

so low because now I know that I will never let myself get there again. Communication is a

broad field, and I do not have to tie myself down to an office 9-5. I will still use my major and

what I have learned with my experience with communications to leave the world better than I

found it. I will just accomplish this goal through some other kind of work.