First week as an Intern - How to quickly ramp up to be successful?

How to ramp up fast and set yourself up for success in the crucial first week of your internship?

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For an Audio Summary, click the Play button below:

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May 9th 2005 was the first day of my internship at Microsoft as a Software Development Engineer. I started on the Microsoft Project team, an application that was part of Microsoft Office suite, that helped project managers create project schedules and view them as Gantt Charts. I met my mentor (let’s call him Matt) on my first day who led me to my office on the second floor of Building 16 on the Redmond campus. I was going to share my office with another employee from the team (let’s call him Paul), someone who would later on become one of my managers. I still remember there was an artificial bamboo tree in the corner of my office, a tree that I took with me home, when I left Microsoft more than a decade later.

On my first day I was given instructions to set up my machines and get enlisted in the source code for Office. Honestly speaking, I had never owned a desktop computer and had never set up one. I owned a couple of laptops during my college days and used the computers in our labs, but the task of setting up a new Windows machine and enlisting in Office source code was pretty intimidating. And this being my first experience in professional work, I wasn’t sure how many questions could or should I ask. I was fortunate to have an amazing mentor Matt, and a great office neighbor Paul, who both were super helpful whenever I asked a question.

Tip #1: When starting in a new role, don’t hesitate to ask questions. It is expected that you will not know much at the beginning. How you deal with the ambiguity and learn by observing and asking questions is a valuable skill.

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