Learn and Be Curious: 4 Pieces of Advice from my AWS Internship
This summer, I worked with Amazon Web Services (AWS) in their Worldwide Public Sector division as a Marketing Intern. Though my official title was “Content Marketing Intern,” I did and learned far more than I could have ever expected. Luckily for me, that’s exactly what I was hoping for when I started in Amazon’s Washington, DC office twelve short weeks ago.
I walked away from the summer with new skills and lasting relationships. It’s the latter that impacted me the most, and I want to share some of the advice that I received and look forward to using in my career.
- “No one’s going to criticize you for learning more.” Do you remember the feeling you had during your first year in college when you felt like the number of interesting things to do far exceeded what you could possibly fit in your schedule? That’s what this summer felt like. If I had free time, I could get trained on our products, watch a Q&A with executive leadership, talk to my mentor…the list goes on. The great thing about this? All I had to do was ask. I wanted to learn about roles outside of my own, so I reached out to field, digital, and product marketers, public relations, and strategy. I was curious about global careers, so I talked to employees across Europe and South America. Most importantly, I used my job description as a starting point, not a boundary. This let me dive deep into content while gaining useful skills across product and field marketing and business at large. Learning inside and outside of your role impacts your success (and happiness!) at work.
- “We’re like a really big startup, so earning trust is important no matter what role you’re in.” This one comes straight out of Amazon’s Leadership Principles, the fourteen concepts that shape the company’s culture. When it started, the team I worked on could fit in one room. Today, it spans the entire globe. I was amazed by the strength of the relationships between employees, and I quickly learned that so much of that strength comes from earning trust. In my role, earning trust entailed an eagerness to help, a respect for others, and the willingness to speak up. Once I did that, I felt more comfortable sharing my ideas and trying new things. Earn trust by doing the tasks that are hard but necessary and being confident in what you know.
- “Very few decisions are one-way doors.” On my first day in the office, our director reminded our team that most of the decisions we make aren’t fixed in stone. As simple as this sounds, it taught me some of the most important lessons I learned all summer: it’s okay to mess up, big goals take you farther than easy ones do, and there’s something to be learned from every mistake. You wouldn’t believe the freedom that comes with this attitude and the success that results from thinking big.
- “You should like the work you do and the people you do it with.” My dad always described the ideal career as one that doesn’t feel like work. This summer gave me a taste of what that feels like. Our customers used AWS solutions to do innovative, meaningful, and world-changing work in the education, government, and nonprofit spheres. As a part of the marketing team, everything I did contributed to telling their stories with people who cared about their mission. This is crucial, whether you’re working for a giant company or the beginnings of your own.
I was lucky to do meaningful work with AWSome people this summer, and I’m excited to use what I learned in my next endeavor!
