The 15-year-old intern
Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on the Interns Expose Amway blog.
You think it’s hard finding an internship while in college? Try being 15.
Visiting from Germany, Hannah Beiderwieden spent last week completing her tenth-grade internship at Amway.
In Germany, students enter elementary school and are then separated into three high schools based on their grades. Those with the highest grades, such as Hannah, finish through twelfth-grade. In tenth-grade, students are required to spend 10 days completing an internship to help narrow their focus, and Hannah decided to spend her 10 days visiting over eight different departments at Amway’s world headquarters.
Back when I was Hannah’s age, my main focus was passing my drivers test, the cute boy that just walked by and the latest gossip. My career path changed weekly, and I was not perfecting my resume. Hannah, however, is way ahead of me.
Fluent in four languages, Hannah is better spoken than many 15-year-olds that I know. Her visit was packed with presentations from departments, lunches with managers, and tours that my time with her was much shorter than I would have liked it to be.
Human resources, research and development, corporate citizenship, digital marketing, global brands, and sales were just a few of the departments she visited. With her experience in languages, Hannah found a fit in marketing and sales.
“During my visit with digital marketing, they involved me in discussions and showed me how they are communicating with people and how knowing different languages can be helpful,” said Hannah.
Just as I began to think our teenage years would never relate, Hannah revealed her plans to turn sixteen – visit Chicago, and see Lady Gaga in concert before returning to Germany.
Looks like 15-year-old me can relate after all.