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May 6, 2013

Tips to Make the Most of a UX Internship

In this month’s User Experience magazine, School of Information MIMS student Arthur Che shares his tips on maximizing the value of a user experience internship.

“Internships are a tremendous opportunity to learn about the field and explore the potential of a UX career in a very short amount of time,” says Che.

Che completed an internship in UI design at Salesforce.com last summer, after meeting Salesforce recruiters at an I School Career Fair. He will be starting a full-time position at Salesforce.com as user-experience designer when he graduates this month.

He and co-author Di Liu give practical tips based on their own internship experiences — and they solicit advice from a half-dozen other I School master’s students.

The article’s tips include:

“Even beyond having a portfolio that sells your ability, the interview is where you sell yourself as a brand. It’s really important to understand your own decision making process and to construct a narrative that other people will also understand, both logically and emotionally.”
—Jennifer Wang, School of Information student (MIMS 2013), UX intern at Location Labs

“Make sure to take some time to talk to your boss and really get some consensus on what projects you’ll work on, what you’ll accomplish by the end of the summer, and what skills you hope to be able to improve upon by doing the work.”
—Gregory Shapiro, School of Information student (MIMS 2013), UX design intern at Practice Fusion

“Demonstrate initiative by working on a variety of projects. As an added bonus, the more people who see that you do quality work, and the more people who can attest to your fit in the company, the better.”
—Bryan Rea, School of Information student (MIMS 2014), Interaction design intern at Google

“I came to realize that offering to help out with tasks that weren’t necessarily my responsibility gave me deeper insight into ways different projects were connected. It also helped earn the respect and appreciation of my busy colleagues.”
—Sara Cambridge, School of Information student (MIMS 2013), UX research and design intern at Proteus Biomedical

“Talk to classmates who had different internship experiences. It helps to get a better idea of various companies, teams, and work environments. Also, go to networking events put on by other companies. Companies take advantage of the summer by hosting interns for events at their offices and telling you about what they do there.”
—Laura Wishingrad, School of Information student (MIMS 2013), HCI intern at Apple

“UX professionals often have eclectic backgrounds. For career switchers, a great way to show initiative and demonstrate value during an internship is to use skills learned in former roles to quickly get up to speed on projects.”
Arthur Che, School of Information student (MIMS 2013), UX intern at Salesforce

Read the rest of the advice at User Experience Magazine.

Last updated:

October 4, 2016