No Internship, No Problem

11-year-old me in Paris vs. 19-year-old me in business school in Paris

So, where did this all start?

it’s March. All my friends are locking in their summer internships, and I’m starting to feel the pressure. As part of our school curriculum, we’re required to complete 20 weeks of internships during our 3 years, and I know it would be smart to get some of those weeks done now.

But here’s the problem: I’m 19, technically too young for most formal internship programs. So now what? Just enjoy my summer vacation? Spend the summer working for one of my parents? Ask them to call in a favor with one of their friends?

Honestly… that was the plan. I was very close to sending an email to one of their colleagues, asking to spend the summer getting coffee, printing things, and pretending to be useful. But when I showed the idea (and the draft) to my dad, he told me it sounded boring. Then he challenged me to come up with something more creative.

Fair enough.

So I sat down and asked myself:

What would I actually be excited to do this summer?

Well… I didn’t really know.

This could be me at the beach right now :(

I knew I didn’t want to waste the months ahead doing something that felt boring or safe. But I also knew that sending cold emails to companies, without any real experience, wasn’t going to get me very far either. Knowing this I started thinking a little further:

Is there something I could do now that would help me land ANY internship I want in the future?

I want to do something that would push me, challenge me, and teach me about something relevant in the world. Time for some brainstorming. I opened a blank doc. Wrote a few terrible ideas. Deleted them. Briefly considered giving up and booking a one-way ticket somewhere sunny. But here’s the thing: I like a challenge.

So I kept thinking:

If I could do anything, without worrying whether it was realistic, what would I try?

That’s when the idea started forming.

What if I didn’t need to wait for an internship to learn and work at my dream company?

What if I could make something instead?

If I can’t intern for the big consulting firms I wanted to...Then maybe I’ll just create a project so relevant, so ambitious, and so interesting that they’ll want to hear about it.

The plan:

– 20 interviews with the CEOs of Norway’s 300 biggest companies

– 5 presentations for the biggest consulting firms in the world

You know what they say: go big or go home

Well… this is definitely big.

Is it overambitious? Maybe.

Will I be trying to pull it off anyway? Yes.

Until next time

June :)