Life as a Remote Amrock Intern

When you hear about internship programs, you might imagine a highly structured experience with things like weekly intern outings and team building activities. However, in our current world of working from home, the potential for activities of that nature becomes somewhat limited. While I may not be getting the traditional Amrock internship experience of working in our downtown Detroit office, my position has been exciting in an entirely different way.

I joined the Amrock marketing team as a copywriter intern in mid-October of 2020, with no idea of what a remote internship would entail. However, since my start date I’ve had the opportunity to work on everything from promotional swag to email marketing campaigns, and even a full website redesign.

Despite my internship being completely remote, I haven’t lost the opportunity to gain real experience and feel real ownership of projects that I work on. To be honest, it’s hardly felt like an internship and more just life as a full-time team member.

The biggest challenge I’ve faced in my internship is due to the lack of in-person connection. It can be somewhat difficult to build a rapport with team members when you’ve never had that face-to-face connection that’s needed to understand their communication style or sense of humor. Despite that, I’ve used it as a chance to break out of my comfort zone and work on my interpersonal communication skillset.

In December, I began supporting the Amrock website redesign. Just before we launched in late January, after weeks of hard work on the new site, our VP of Marketing, Eric Kushner, congratulated us on a job well done. He then asked if anyone had ever worked on a website revamp for a publicly traded company before. His question really struck me. I realized that I hadn’t just been editing and proofing but was really contributing to a major accomplishment.

Since day one, my team has never treated me as just “the intern”. My team members have trusted me to work on real projects with real impact. Taking part in this internship during this tumultuous period we find ourselves in has given me confidence in my skillset. I will be able to walk away from this internship with great pieces for my portfolio and a better understanding of what I’m capable of.

While working from home may not be ideal, it does present a unique opportunity. I feel that I have increased my ability to connect with other members of our Family of Companies, learn about areas of business that interest me and really build on my skill set.

At the end of the day, I think it’s important to remember that an internship is entirely what you make of it, especially when it’s remote.