As an undergrad embarking on my first management consulting internship, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. On campus, I was involved in a consulting organisation where we did project work for clients, but I questioned if the skills I gained would be transferrable and applicable. It didn’t feel “real” enough. Upperclassmen who had done similar internships told me to relax and enjoy the remainder of my semester. In the end, although I tried to take their advice to heart, a part of me still wanted to make sure I was at the top of my game. Here is a list of the three key takeaways I wish I had known before starting my consulting internship.
1. Your manager and your team have little to no expectations of your skills
Although the expectations for MBA or experienced hires may be different, I quickly learned that no one was expected to know anything coming in. During training, we learned what I thought were pretty basic things like aligning shapes and text in PowerPoint or using “Match” and “Index” functions in Excel. These were all things I had taken for granted learning early on in my college career as a business major at school. Some of my fellow interns – government or biomedical engineering majors – struggled in the beginning, but got a grasp of things rather quickly.
Even when I got staffed on my project, my team seemed to applaud even the little things I knew how to do on PowerPoint and Excel. The industry and project knowledge took a bit longer to pick up, but any grasp on the content seemed to be received with congratulations. Maybe my team was just an extremely positive and supportive bunch, but they saw that I was eager to learn. That mattered more than what I already could do coming in. From my experience, anything can be taught and learned on the job. But you have to demonstrate that you are willing, especially when the initial learning curve is so steep. Some of my fellow interns had to learn Python for their projects – none of them had any coding experience before this summer! But they turned out just fine.
2. The “Work hard, play hard” lifestyle is real
Although every intern had a different schedule based on their team dynamics and preferences, it’s safe to say many of us worked well past the usual 40 hours per week. I regularly got out around 10 PM and could count the number of times I didn’t have Seamless for dinner on one hand. It was especially rough since my project was global and we’d regularly be on call with teams from APAC, LATAM, and EMEA at odd hours. I definitely didn’t mind working late though – I loved my team and it eventually became the norm. They definitely felt bad at times and would make me leave earlier some nights and do weekend work without me.
The internship program definitely made sure we had fun events every weekend to get us acclimated to the city. We had activities from picnics in Bryant Park, to Hamilton on Broadway, to bowling at Frames. I can honestly say that there was never a weekend during my internship where they didn’t have killer fun activities planned for us. It was such a great way, especially for those not from the area, to explore NYC. There are definitely two ends of the spectrum though. Some people feel burned out from the long hours and prefer to relax at home. Others want to make sure any waking moment they are out and about spending time with friends. I definitely fell into the latter and wanted to make up for lost time during the weekends.
3. Don’t forget to take care of yourself
I wouldn’t say I felt burned out after the summer, but I could easily see how a lifetime of this type of work could lead to burnout. As the summer progressed, I found myself falling asleep out of sheer exhaustion when I got home and fought the urge to sleep 12+ hours on the weekend to recover. My plan to go to the gym every couple of days never really took off either. The few times I was able to make a fitness class or hit the gym though, I felt a little more revived. Or healthy at the very least. The lack of exercise and constant Seamless was getting to me. It was a complete 180 to the healthy eating and frequent exercise I had been used to at school. I don’t think it really hit me until my internship ended that I definitely should have stayed home a couple of weekends and just relaxed. I think for me, because it was only a summer of this lifestyle, I really wanted to soak it all in and enjoy my summer in the city with friends. When I start full-time though, I definitely foresee taking some more personal time and finding better balance in my life. People on my team talked about how great they were going to feel after rolling off the project and taking some time off before getting staffed again. It was definitely a more intensive project than the norm and I could see how asking to take time off was the right move. All in all, my summer in consulting was a blast, but long-term, I would definitely need to make some adjustments to my lifestyle choices.
Internships at every company will be different, but they are a great exposure to what the position entails full-time. I think that while there were some surprises from the internship that I wasn’t expecting, my summer 100% lived up to my expectations.
Final advice is to make the most out of each internship you have. They offer endless learning opportunities and room for growth.
Emily Ma is a recent graduate of the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University where she specialized in marketing and business analytics.
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