# lousy feeling after finishing my internship



## CreamCheese (Jul 21, 2010)

Today was my last meeting with my supervisor on how I did on my internship (6-weeks long, for academic credit). Basically, my confidence level in the past year has already been somewhat plummeting, but this internship was like a stock market crash, lol, basically...every day, my supervisor would pick on me for small mistakes, leave snarky and snide comments, with rare occasions of being nice. I am open to constructive criticism and communication, but her criticism was overriding the constructiveness and the way she communicated was often condescending and humiliating. I contacted her two weeks before my internship to let her know I was coming, but she still insisted "I had poor etiquette on contacting her beforehand". Also I texted her one Sunday asking if I could come in on a Monday, forgetting she was on vacation and she told me it was "very disrespectful of me" to contact her while she was on vacation and asking if I could come in on a Monday instead of asking "what day works best for you" which she said is a far more polite way to address supervisors, even though I made sure a thousand times over the message itself was polite. I didn't realize that such a small thing would be picked up as "disrespectful" and as somebody who has some social anxiety, having the constant fear of being judged by what I say or do only makes it worse. I did learn from my internship, which is a good thing, but I do feel depressed; just too many times during these weeks, I've asked myself if I even picked the right field. Everyday, I go home, all I want to do is read news articles, watch sports, or something that didn't remind me of the internship. I even started a blog on things that interest me (which I have a very wide and varied amount of interests). I feel like I just didn't have enough time exploring in college what I really wanted to do and sometimes it makes me kind of sad. I once even asked my advisor if I should do a minor and she told me that "oh what's more important is your required classes because you'll be out of school making money and a minor isn't going to do anything to your resume except hinder your performance in your main classes". Kind of dismayed by that answer, I decided not to overload myself with more classes, but do think that I should have just not taken her advice. Of course, I care about money, I need a job to earn, but I took so much stress with this internship: I became cranky, really shaky on the job, fast heartbeat, extreme fatigue, burn-out, etc. I guess I would rather have a decent salary and be a little less stressed than have a high salary and feel the way I did. I'm considering getting a masters or doing a fellowship of some sort to have an alternate setting for my major. And I'm doing my best to keep my head up for the next 5 6-week internships I have. 

Just wanted to vent, lol. Also wondering if any of you have had similar experiences in a work setting. How do you manage with the stress? Any advice for an almost graduate?


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