Berklee Blogs follows Kayleigh Mill, a Music Business major and participant in Berklee’s Summer Internship Program in New York City. Today, Kayleigh tells us what sort of mindset prospective interns need to cultivate in order to land their dream internship.

Say You’re in school and you only have two, maybe three, more years until you’re pushed into the real world – a place where a degree will not guarantee you a job. You’re best course of action is to find an internship, which can be competitive and difficult to find. So what do you do?

In a word: research. I’ve gathered information from my own personal research, my experiences securing two internships in New York, as well as my peers’ experiences finding their internships, and compiled the most useful and universal guidelines for locking in the perfect company for you.

Plan Ahead

 Companies are looking for interns that already have some kind of experience in their field. This may seem unfair to those who don’t have work experience, but there are ways to gain experience that don’t require an internship or hired position. The best way to get experience is through your school and community – Clubs, class projects, endeavors with classmates and friends, etc.

As soon as you know what your goals are, start gaining skills and experience that will help you in your search for internships and employment.

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In today’s post, Berklee Blogs follows up with Kayleigh Mill, a Music Business major and participant in Berklee’s Summer Internship Program in New York City. Kayleigh tells us what her day-to-day tasks look like at both her internships and what they have taught her so far.

Three weeks in and I’m pretty confident about what to expect from the day to day at my internships. Time for a sneak peek into the lowest level in the music industry:

Internship #1

The best part about this industry? Waking up early is avoided at all costs. My internship for The Living Room doesn’t start until 2, so I can either catch up on the sleep I didn’t get over the weekend or wake up and get some writing done before the chaos of the world takes up all my time. 

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In today’s post, Kayleigh Mill, a Music Business major and participant in Berklee’s Summer Internship Program in New York City, shares the key concepts that are helping her thrive as an intern at Ariel Publicity, a New York-based public relations firm specializing in social media and the music industry

As someone who really prefers to take on my own projects and would rather work in isolation than with a group of like-minded people, being an intern is a bit of a struggle. There isn’t much choice in the tasks you’re assigned (unless you’re lucky) and a lot of the time there are tasks and projects that have to be split with the other interns. If you work well in this environment, you’ll have no problems. For those of you who prefer a different work situation, I’ve come up with some tips to make the (likely unpaid) internship work for you.

1. Learn From The Little Things

Expect to have a lot of tasks that are time consuming but fairly mindless. Taking down messages, updating inventories and databases, running out to get various items, etc. The good thing about these tasks? You can learn a LOT about what really goes into a business. It’s not all about ideas and the “big picture.” All of the tasks that are a little less exciting are essential to making the business run, and even make the company come across as more professional. 

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