As any business school student will tell you, the summer internship between the first and second years of an MBA program can be as important a part of your ultimate career path as any class you take while on campus. And yet, amid the many pressures that confront MBAs when they return to campus in the fall, it can be easy to lose sight of experiences and impressions they may have had while interning.
Now, thanks to an online resource developed by a recent Harvard Business School (HBS) graduate, current students can keep track of their goals and experiences during summer internships, creating a resource to help them gain as much from the process as possible. Called Life Guides, the website features a Summer Internship Guide to help MBAs quickly and easily record and summarize their summer internships, enabling them to better understand what they want to do with their careers as a result.
Recent HBS grad Phil Strazzulla created Life Guides – and the Summer Internship Guide in particular – in response to his own experience as a summer intern at an investment bank after his junior year in college.
“I didn’t have a great summer and knew I wanted to do something else,” Strazzulla recalls. “Nonetheless, three weeks after getting back to campus in September, I was ready to sign my full-time offer for said bank.” He’d completely forgotten how dissatisfied he’d been with his internship and what his original goals had been. Fortunately for Strazzulla, he re-read a journal entry he’d written over the course of the summer before signing the offer with the bank. “The 15-minute exercise of writing that journal entry literally saved me a few years in a job I didn’t want,” he says.
Life Guides’ Summer Internship Guide is free and easy to use, consisting of just a few simple steps. In May or June, registered users can briefly reflect on their goals at the start of their internships. In July, they receive an email inviting them to complete a mid-summer update, recording their experiences and insights while interning. In September, they get a summary that captures what they learned.
Experiences recorded as part of the Summer Internship Guide remain completely confidential unless users choose to share them with other members of the Life Guides community. Those who do choose to share their experiences add to a growing library where interns share their goals as well as what excites them or makes them most nervous.
If you’re about to embark upon a summer internship, why not check out Life Guides today?
