I have spent the summer working at a major engineering firm as a summer intern. The department that hired me is very research oriented and I think they usually take more grad students. Anyway, I feel like I have been under performing. I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes, and most of the time I feel like I have no clue what I’m doing. I’ve had to ask a lot of questions but most of the time I feel like I’m still confused afterward. I dont think I want to pursue a career in this particular field, but I know there are many other options. However, I feel very demoralized and am starting to feel depressed. I feel like I’ve wasted a summer on a job that I haven’t done well at, and I just feel very stupid at work. Does anyone have thoughts, or any experiences that they can share?
I had some of the same feelings at my internships 30 years ago. And things turned out ok 
The great thing about doing internships is that you’ll have fewer of those feelings when you start in the real world after graduation.
As for a story, one day I actually told my boss he could dock my pay for that day due to a stupid error. (Yea - that was a bit silly. But I was 20 years old at the time.) He laughed and told me it was no biggie.
That’s normal, and they expect mistakes. If they want to take you back, they’ll be glad that you made those mistakes on an intern’s salary rather than a full-time salary.
Worst comes to worst, they won’t take you back, and you’ll have to leverage your experience in the next job search.
The mistakes is part of your learning process.
You forget, @datagirl, that all of those people also had to start somewhere and also made a lot of mistakes.
Quit being so hard on yourself and take everything as a learning experience. You are supposed to make mistakes. How would you know what to ask if you don’t make mistakes?
BTW my DH hates know-it-all students who show up for internships and start to insult everyone’s intelligence by saying that they know more… They can’t be told what to do because they know more than you.
You will never make a mistake if you don’t anything.
Internships are the time to ask stupid questions and make mistakes. The boss presumes you are a blank slate and part of the learning process is to try new things and make mistakes and learn from them.
People at this level shouldn’t be making “lots” of mistakes. When you see this, what it usually indicates is a subconscious cry for help as they are either in over their head or don’t want to be there in the first place, much as this intern has indicated.
My recommendation is to finish out the internship in the most dynamic and useful way possible. Put your all into it. Your primary obligation is to fulfill the employer’s expectations first, try to meet your goals second and then reevaluate and move on to the next challenge.
It might make you feel better to discuss it with your supervisor…" I’ve made some mistakes, is this common for interns and how can I improve?"
I had a talk with my kid yesterday on Face time about her internship. She said lots of time, her manager said something that she didn’t know, but just kept her mouth shut. Luckily for her, her mentor said to the manager she might not know that.
But she is getting in the grooves of things, feels more productive than the first week where she reported she hasn’t done anything useful yet. She is helping them release a Beta version of software that is going to be used at Costco. So that is useful, IMO.
I think give it time you will get into the grooves of things too.
We once got an invoice for $20k worth of prototype components ordered by an intern whose assignment was to pretty much do a literature survey of what’s out there… If you haven’t caused $20k worth don’t worry about it 
That’s how internships generally work.
Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. The last middle age guy I know that made a serious mistake, like format C, the old way of whipping out the computer. He got fired and went back to school and then started a very successful company that sold to CISCo for millions of dollar. I never thought that could happened to him. But I was wrong.
Not suggesting you might get fired, not at all, but don’t be afraid to make mistakes, even a grave one like the one I suggested, there is always a second chance to redeem yourself, particularly in America.
Datagirl - We hope our comments have helped. If you are still feeling overwhelmed, do reach out to local support system too.
turbo93: Hehe. About a month ago I was attempting to debug a parts tracking system in a production machine. After a minor logic change, the entire machine stopped running.
It did not take long for two operators and five engineers to show up to investigate what happened. About 10 minutes later (which cost my company over $10K), I decided to take out the codes that I added in, and the machine started running again.
The two operators and four engineers stared at me for several seconds, while the fifth one silently laughed.
There were plenty of times where I wasn’t exactly sure what I was doing, and that’s normal. If you’re feeling demoralized, have you talked to your mentor or supervisor about it?
You guys have made me feel a lot better! It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who’s messed up. I only have a few weeks left so I’m just gonna try and be as positive as I can and hopefully finish it on a good note. Even if they don’t hire me back, I learned a lot about myself and what I want to do so hopefully I can digest this experience and us it for better ones in the future.
Remember the prime directive. Bring food often, and especially to your final presentation
I have done 3 internships with one of the biggest chemical companies in the US. At the end they did not extend me an offer for full time position. Worked out better for me as I landed a job with better company.
Don’t be too depressed as there are always better opportunities out there!
I’ve found it’s usually good to bring food BEFORE your final review.
I have lots of interns and just had a review for one yesterday. She was nervous. I really meant it when I told her she was doing well because she only made the same mistake once-- there were many small mistakes but each one she only did once.
And she didn’t ask permission to go to the bathroom OR pee on the seat…both of which interns have done. So…
Regarding the advice about bringing food to the final presentation, the company I am currently working at doesn’t have that kind of tradition.
In fact, for our final intern presentation, ALL of the senior managers, a few managers from the headquarters and several employees (usually 20-30 people in total) attend the presentation. And several interns do their final presentation every week.
I think that comment was made tongue in cheek. There’s lot of free food at most high tech companies.