5 Ways To Leverage Your Internship

5 Ways To Leverage Your Internship pexels.com You’ve heard the phrases over and over during your college years: internship. The coveted internship seems to be the gateway into a fruitful career regardless of what you want to do. Say you scored an awesome internship and now you’re out applying for some new jobs in the all-too-competitive job market today. How do you turn that glorious internship you did into something that will both enhance and improve you as an applicant? Well, this part isn’t as hard as the rest of the job application may be. Here are five ways to leverage your internship experience: 1. Experience Firstly, the fact that you have any internship experience whatsoever is a positive in any job market. The majority of this article will focus on internships within a related field to the previous internship, but any extra work you’ve done can be utilized as a skill. Every internship experience provides valuable lessons in the professional workplace that cannot be taught everywhere else. Be sure to mention that you are no stranger to this environment or a very similar one. Your experience alone makes you more qualified than anyone without an internship. You know how to write emails, answer calls, use various machines, and perform at a high professional standard. These skills are irreplaceable in the job market and are almost uniquely gained by related job or intern experience. 2. Diversity The beauty of an internship, or perhaps your personal struggle, is that you are not pushed into one single job. Instead, you’re more likely to be thrown into every job. During an internship, you aren’t likely to be pigeonholed whatsoever. You’ll gain experience in all sorts of departments and with all different types of people. This is perfect for applying for jobs because you aren’t going to be missing any crucial experience, you’ve got it all. An internship has prepared you well to take on any task, whether it be in your comfort zone or not. Internships allow you to confront a variety of problems with confidence and ease. 3. Dedication Someone who has taken an internship has also taken time to really evaluate what is important in their life. The fact of the matter is, any former intern takes their career seriously enough to sacrifice their time for their passion. An internship, especially an unpaid one, not only demonstrates a great interest in the field, but an executed one as well. Having an internship on your resume is the difference between saying you are serious about your career and actually taking the action to advance it. You’re willing to put up with the not so glamorous, nitty gritty jobs that an intern does just to soak in the atmosphere of your ideal workplace. This makes for an applicant that can talk the talk and walk the walk. 4. Connections Because you already have experience in the field, you also have connections in the field. You aren’t a complete new kid on the block who knows nobody and has no idea what’s going on. It is also possible that the past connections you made from your former internship could translate over to positive relationships in your new professional job. You also have a good feel for how the people within this field work and act. Are they very strict and professional or more laid back? If you already have an idea of how the workplace functions, even in a vague sense, you’ll know the proper etiquette going in and won’t make a complete fool of yourself. Also, you won’t have to learn the ropes the hard way. 5. First-Hand Training Internship is also crucial to your job hunt because it cuts out a lot of training that can cut into you and your boss’s time. When you have experience in the field, this also means you have at least a general knowledge of the software and equipment that goes with it. You may be handy with the scanner or a wiz with Excel and this certainly isn’t going to turn off your future employers. Your internship has likely taught you so many valuable skills that your new job will sigh in relief at not having to train another person in how to make a spreadsheet. Hopefully you’ve now realized all the wonderful gifts your former internship has given you (even if it wasn’t a job). Often, it’s only in retrospect that you truly notice the enormity of the things you learned while interning. You’ve learned valuable skills to improve your coworker relations, system operations, and lots of other things that simply can’t be taught without some great experience. An internship isn’t just something to boost up your resume, but something that probably greatly improved your life as a worker. You may be closer to scoring your dream job than you thought. You may want to thank your former self.

?? How to Track your Childs Tutoring Progress

?? How to Track your Child’s Tutoring Progress How to Track your Child’s Tutoring Progress When your child is regularly receiving tuition, it’s only natural for you to want to track the progress they’re making.After all, you’re spending money on a tutor, so you want to know that they’re doing their job.Schools regularly hold parents’ evenings, giving you the opportunity to speak to your child’s teachers. When it comes to tutoring, there isn’t always the same level of accountability.But that doesn’t mean you can’t track your child’s progress.Here’s how to do it...Set Some Goals It’s hard to measure progress unless you specifically have something to measure. Ideally, you should set some goals before your child’s first tutoring session, but if your child has already started it isn’t too late.You need to work out what you want from your child’s tutoring sessions. Do you simply want to improve their knowledge of the subject? If so, how are you measuring that? You could set regular tests or past papers to see your child’s improvement over time. We’ll cover that later.Do you want your child to work towards a specific grade? In that case, you could keep setting past papers and work towards getting that grade.Do you want your child to be more confident in their abilities? Maybe you could measure that through their behaviour in the classroom. Are they answering more questions? Are they even starting to help other kids in the class?Once you have your goals, it’s important that the tutor is aware of them too. That way they know which areas to focus on, a nd can report back to you.Which brings us on nicely to...Speak to the TutorIt sounds obvious, but your first port of call when you’re looking to track your child’s tutoring progress is the tutor themselves.Most tutors will be more than happy to schedule in some time to chat about your child, and this presents the perfect opportunity to get some feedback.The following list of questions will help you determine how much progress your child is making:Have you noticed any improvement in my child’s knowledge?Have you noticed any improvement in my child’s confidence?Is my child enjoying the sessions?How are you measuring my child’s abilities?Can you show me some of my child’s work?Ask the right questions and you’ll be able to get an overview of how your child is progressing with their tutor. You can also discuss how much progress is being made towards the goals that you set.Your tutor, however, isn’t the only person who should be noticing a difference in your child…Speak to the TeacherYour child’s tutoring is only one part of their education. They still attend school every day, and so their teacher can provide some great feedback about how they are improving.Hopefully, your child’s teacher is already aware that they’re receiving extra tutoring. If not, it’s worth mentioning it to them. This will help your teacher cater more to your child’s needs.If you can, arrange to speak to your child’s teacher after a couple of months of tutoring. They can then give you an idea of how your child has progressed in that time.Here are some questions you should be asking:Does my child have a better understanding of the subject?Is my child concentrating more in class?Is my child more confident in class?Can you show me some of my child’s work?Is my child on track for a specific grade?The teacher sees your child several times a week, and so they’re in the perfect position to track any progress.But they aren’t the only person you should be listening to …Speak to your Child Ultimately, tutoring is for your child’s benefit, and so it’s important to check in with them about how they’re finding it.Sometimes, the conversations you have with your child are more insightful than those with their tutor or teacher.It’s a great opportunity to understand how tutoring is affecting them, and whether they’re noticing any improvements in themselves. That’s equally important.Some of the questions you should be asking are:Are you enjoying your tutoring?How do you find the work?How often do you find yourself not knowing the answers?Do you volunteer in class? Why/Why not?Do you understand things better after tutoring?Of course, it can be hard to get an honest answer from your child, so take what they say with a pinch of salt. Used in conjunction with what the tutor and teacher says, however, it can provide you with the missing piece of the puzzle.Set Past PapersHow your child fares with past papers or mock tests can tell you a lot about the progress they’re making. For starters, tests are standardised. Your child will get a mark which you can then compare with previous marks. This provides you with a clear, numerical way of tracking your child’s progress.You can find a lot of GCSE and A-Level past papers online. Alternatively, you can ask your child’s teacher for some. This is particularly useful for Primary and KS3 tests, which aren’t as readily available online.Don’t go overboard and give your child a past paper to do every week. They’ll get exhausted and bored, and then their marks will suffer. Instead, set key milestone markers. You could do a test after month 1, a test after 3 months, and then a test after 6 months. And be sure to reward your child when you notice that they’ve made an improvement!When your Child isn’t Making Progress It’s worth bearing in mind that tutoring can often be a long-term endeavour. You won’t always see results right away. Having said that, if you’re concerned that your child isn’t making as much progress as you want them to, then there are some things you can do.Firstly, speak to the tutor about it. If your child isn’t making progress, then you need to know why. There might be any number of reasons for this.Perhaps your child isn’t paying attention to their tutor, or isn’t doing the homework required. Maybe your tutor is rushing through parts of the syllabus and your child can’t keep up. Or possibly, and this is very uncommon, your tutor simply isn’t very good at their job.Whatever the reason, you need to act as soon as you can. The longer your child isn’t progressing, the further behind they’re going to fall.Have an honest and frank discussion with the tutor about where things aren’t working, and devise a plan to get back on track.Whatever you do, don’t go in all guns blazing and accuse the tutor of not doing their job. Chances are it’s not all their fault. Accusing them will create an awkward atmosphere and it won’t help your child in the long run.If all else fails maybe you should consider finding a new tutor. But that’s a last resort, and chances are you won’t need to.Get TrackingAs you can see, keeping track of your child’s tutoring progress isn’t impossible. With a bit of organisation and communication, you can measure how your child improves over time.It all starts with your goals. Without a goal, you have nothing to measure progress against. So make sure that your goals are clear, and that everyone involved knows what they are.