As we reach our final weeks in the internship, many meetings are being held between us interns and our supervisor, along as an entire group. Overall, team communications have had their ups and downs, but I am glad to say that in these final weeks, everyone is on a similar page for where they are at, what they’ve learned and how they can move on once the internship is over.
We utilized multiple channels and tools for our team communications, which is what helped many of us stay on track with where everyone is at. Our main channel sources of communication were WhatsApp groups, Google emails / chat / meet, and direct phone calls / messaging. Having all of these channels allowed me to always maintain contact with my supervisor for the progress on what I was working on, and to always have the chance to ask any questions or concerns. In some working environments, it can be really difficult to contact supervisors beyond phone calls, which of course, cannot always be the main source of communication. As we are students, we are also dealing with specific class hours that limit us from always having the chance to speak on the phone. Therefore, being able to send a message to my supervisor directly on Google chat gave both of us time to come to a conclusion based on each particular matter.
As a team, we used Google meets and calendar in order to keep track of our meetings, which ran both weekly and bi-weekly. WhatsApp is a global phone friendly app that connects us all, whether we have Androids, iPhones or otherwise. When supervisors send out messages to the entire team, the interns are expected to acknowledge it, whether it is through a text or emoji response (thumbs up to agree). When it comes to working in internships, it is very important to establish these bounds of what supervisors and their interns expect when they work together, because it helps to prevent any misinterpretations. If certain boundaries and expectations are not set in time, then it can cause a domino effect and create an unhealthy working environment. Overall, because we prioritized communication tactics across the whole team, we were able to successfully work with one another throughout the weeks of the internship.
