Speakers: Ben Bass
Level: Presentation
Excerpt: Internships should be a time of learning and exploration for the interns and their managers as well as the rest of your team. Interns are not glorified gophers, there to do the work you don’t want to do and pickup coffee for the team. Join us to help figure out what you can do to help you and your intern gain as much out of their internship as possible.
Description: Internships are an amazing opportunity for both the interns and their mentors. The intern has a chance to learn new skills – not just specific skills to your domain; python, packaging, etc., but also how to be a good co-worker. As a mentor, you are able to help teach them, and model for them what a good co-worker does. How are meetings handled in your environment? College age and younger interns have probably not dealt with Outlook or other enterprise calendaring and do not know the proper etiquette. An internship is a chance for the mentor to mold the intern into someone you want to work with, your ideal co-worker.
In addition to how to properly adult, a mentor has the opportunity to present different ideas and job roles to an intern. Many people have no clue what they want or do not want to do until they have tried it. An internship is an amazing opportunity for the intern to get a taste of many different jobs and roles that are available within your organization. Often times learning what one does NOT like is more important than knowing what one does like. A well thought out and planned internship can provide this opportunity to many interns over the years.
Another benefit is for the mentor. Mentoring and teaching an intern provides an amazing opportunity to work with and interact with those who are much closer to their education than you are. You can learn new things, see what is being taught. As these interns have different experiences and perspectives than you do, listen to what they say and test or implement ideas that they have. Do not throw them out without thinking about them. If they are missing/lacking perspective, this a teaching opportunity for the intern. If the idea does have merit, include it and make sure to give credit to the intern and potentially let them help with implementing the idea if possible..
About the speaker
Ben Bass
My name is Ben Bass and I have been working in IT for over 24 years as a macOS specialist. I have run the gamut from help desk and front line support to building infrastructure to support several thousand macs. I also worked as a consultant for quite a while where I would be the entire “IT Shop” for small to medium businesses. More recently I have been focusing on macOS client security, where I have been working on translating the vast experience and pool of knowledge of windows endpoint security and take those concepts and apply them to the macOS. I also have been one of the intern coordinator for the IT department for the past two years.