Summer internships 2020 vs 2021: What have we learned?

For many college students, internships are essential to securing jobs after graduation. When Covid-19 caused in-person office and school shutdowns in March 2020, many internships were canceled, and others became remote so that students could still complete them. 

As we begin to return to normal, three UW students share their experiences navigating virtual internships, and how they compare with the internships and jobs they got this summer.

When the shutdown occurred in March 2020, recent graduate Christopher Wilson was working with a small company in Madison as a software engineering intern. 

Wilson’s internship became virtual.  Wilson, who graduated with a degree in computer science, said it took some time to adjust. “There was a learning curve,” Wilson said. “There was a bit of a delay in production and productivity and getting connected to everything.” 

In the end, however, the internship was a positive experience. “I would say I did pretty well during the spring … “I’ve learned to adjust and become a lot more attentive with time.” 

After completing this internship, Wilson began a remote internship with a data company based in Chicago, where he still works. Wilson is grateful for the internship’s effort to create social opportunities and connections. 

“It’s been great,” Wilson said. “[The internship] has a lot of social events … anywhere from coding competitions to social hours on Fridays,” Wilson noted that he really appreciates his internship’s efforts to connect with other team members and managers. “They have a lot of meet and greets with current workers and managers … There’s [also] company-wide announcement meetings where you get a chance to see the faces of the whole company. You can build relationships with people and managers and CEOs.”

Wilson plans to start a full-time position in Chicago in the fall, where he’ll be able to return to the office. “I’m excited to see the people that I’ve met through Zoom in person because I can already tell they’re amazing people,” Wilson said “I’m excited to experience the world.”

Recent graduate Rachel Anderson had different experiences with virtual internships. Anderson graduated this spring with a degree in Legal Studies and Political Science and currently has a full-time position at UW–Madison’s Campus and Visitor Relations (CAVR) as the Campus Visit Program Lead. She started working for CAVR in summer 2019 as an information guide at Memorial Union, before becoming a supervisor. Anderson had begun a new position as program assistant in March 2020, prior to the shutdown. 

“It was definitely a learning experience,” Anderson said, of going virtual, “[and] knowing that things are just going to take longer, and technical difficulties… especially being virtual I [also] realized I was spreading myself a lot thinner than I am in person.” 

Anderson noted that, in spite of these challenges, she was grateful for the close-knit community of CAVR and the great people she worked with. “I stayed at my job [at CAVR] with my same bosses… because they’re all fantastic people,” Anderson said, “We got a good bunch [of student tour guides]… everyone is so friendly [and] nice.” 

CAVR re-opened for in-person tours and in-person work on May 10th. “It’s incredible,” Anderson said, of being in person again. She noted that she’s grateful for small things, like the ability to just, “pop your head in,” to someone’s office, and ask them a question. Anderson plans to stay as Campus Visit Program Lead until August and then take a gap year before applying to graduate school. “I’m going to try to make a bucket list [for my gap year…] [and] do things in Madison I’ve never done.”  

Rising senior Samantha Henschel had internships both before and during the pandemic. Henschel currently has a strategic communications internship with American Family Insurance, which she began in Summer 2020. Henschell’s internship was made virtual two weeks before she began, and was, “super thankful,” that it wasn’t canceled. 

Henschel noted that, although it was initially hard adjusting, she ended up really enjoying working remotely. “The intern team at American Family [Insurance] was super adaptable … I really enjoyed my experience working remotely so much so that I will probably stay remote through the end of my time with them,” she said.  

Henschel said the pandemic blurred the lines between professionalism and homelife, specifically in the workplace. “I feel like a lot of the time, you are taught to be super professional and there [are] these professional norms,” she noted, “I feel like Covid kind of took away a lot of those with working remotely.”

Henschel learned valuable lessons throughout the pandemic, she said. “I would say being flexible is really important. [The pandemic] has really taught me that being empathetic and understanding is really important.”