Second Post
One of the many reasons I wanted to do an internship was to experience a different work environment. I’ve worked as a hairstylist since I was seventeen years old. It’s the only job experience I’ve had, and I wanted to experience the complete opposite of the service industry.
Service Industry vs. Office Environment
My internship with the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park helped me not only expand my skill set but to also experience a different work environment. With the Park Service, I was in a relaxed office environment. I did occasionally have to go out to the visitor centers and some of the trails, but most of the time I was in an office. This is the complete opposite of what I am used to. I’m used to a fast-paced environment with a central focus on satisfying client needs. At the salon, I’m always either with a client, cleaning, or answering the phone. I have to multitask a lot and am always running around doing something.
Skills I picked up at my internship included time management and inventorying chemical products. I was often given multiple tasks all at once within this position but had different deadlines to meet for each of them. This gave me plenty of time to focus on prioritizing what needed to be done the soonest and helped me improve my time management skills. The skills I’ve picked up working at the hair salon are communication and multitasking. I have to be good at communicating with clients to have a clear understanding of what they are asking from me and to deliver the customer’s desired outcome. Both of these environments had a big emphasis on teamwork.
Impact on my Future Career Plans
Experiencing this internship has given me some clarity on my future career plans. I would like to take a step back from the hair industry. I’ve enjoyed my time doing hair and I will continue to renew my license. However, this internship has taught me that I enjoyed the office environment more than I anticipated. Also, from what I witnessed at the National Park Service; I would like to go into the business side of government. Ideally, I’ll start out with administrative work and work my way up to management. I’m still not one hundred percent sure what I want to do and the details are still somewhat fuzzy, but that’s okay. Many college students think they need to have their lives and careers figured out by the time they graduate. In reality, the majority of students aren’t sure what they are going to do, and they have plenty of time to figure it out.