What To Bring To Your Internship Training Or Orientation

Our three brand new spring interns have internship training next Friday right before the holiday. We’re really excited to get two of them in-person and one of them virtually. I’ve heard a few students ask me what they should bring to best prepare for their internship trainings and orientations. Here are a few ideas for you:

• Large Tote Bag or Messenger Bag for Guys. You have to have something professional and polished looking to carry all of your stuff inside of!

• Half-Sized Notebook. You want something that fits in your bag where you can take notes. It’s really important to actually take notes at your orientation or internship training. Your supervisors are doing a training so they don’t have to constantly repeat themselves. Show them you value their time and expertise by taking notes on what they say.

• Two Pens – Blue or Black Ink. You don’t need to bring your purple sparkle pen to the first day of your internship. Go professional and bring a simple pen (use the cap so it doesn’t leak on your bag) and go with blue or black ink to be safe.

• Your ID & Social Security Card. Depending on the company, they might require your Driver’s License/ID and a social security card. Most likely they would make copies of these documents. Bring them in a wallet and make sure you clean the wallet out so wads of paper aren’t falling out and you can easily find what you need.

• Bring Extra Cash. I would put at least $20.00 in your pocket just to be safe. You never know when an unexpected expense will pop up and/or be cash only!

• Bring a laptop if you have one. If you have a laptop, you may as well bring it unless otherwise informed. I know for our internship training, we’ll go over how our Google Calendar and Google Docs work. If we have the opportunity to train interns on the actual computer they’ll be using – we really try to take advantage of that.

• Bring Gum or Mints. Keep it fresh, of course!

• Bring a sweater/jacket. You never know the temperature of where you might be sitting for the training.

• Bring a Protein Bar. I prefer the salted chocolate Kind Bars! As you never know when lunch will come.

• Student Business Cards. If you don’t have student business cards, don’t worry about this but if you do have them, you may as well take them with you. We like the site MOO for business cards!

• Folder with five copies of your resume and cover letter. Just in case someone in the training session needs to reference it. Never hurts to be ultra-prepared!

• Copy of your Internship Hours. This always helps especially if the team in the training wants to use as a reminder of when you will show up moving forward.

For more insights on how to prepare for an internship, please read All Work, No Pay, my book on internships.