Barbara Walters once told the graduating class of Sarah Lawrence, "Follow your compass, follow your gut." This intuitive approach to decision making may hold some truth in the world of internship searches.
We've all experienced those "Aha!" moments. Those times when everything felt so clear and made so much sense that we knew what course to take or what action to choose. I recently had an "Aha!" moment in my frustrating, and seemingly-endless quest for a new internship.
A couple of weeks ago, unforeseen circumstances left me without my reliable internship at a small law firm in my hometown. And so, I embarked on a perilous journey to find a new position.
My major mistake in searching for an internship was that I wasn't quite clear about my intentions, or what exactly it was that I wanted. Had I said from the outset "My intention is to write, plain and simple", which as a matter of fact was my "Aha!" moment later on, I might have found my position at CollegeRecruiters.com sooner.
As I traveled through the murky waters of internships in various occupational fields, nothing felt right in my gut. And my head was getting in the way of everything. Variables such as pay scale, employee benefits, and job location were throwing me for a loop. But when I came upon the spot at CollegeRecruiters.com, I immediately "knew" that it was the right fit.
This intuitive knowing in decision making is backed up by scientific studies. According to one study by researchers at the University of Amsterdam, and as reported in an article by Gareth Cook of the Boston Globe, decisions with many variables (choosing a new internship certainly fits the criteria of the study), are best made when one considers the pertinent factors, waits awhile, and then follows one's gut feeling to make the ultimate decision.
If this holds true, then following ones gut, and getting out of one's head, may be an effective way in choosing an internship. Internships can have many variables -- paid or unpaid, location, the field and nature of the internship, etc. -- and sometimes just going with that "Aha!" feeling, and ignoring the noise in one's head, can be the best bet.