Taking Initiative: Lessons From My Summer Internship by Tina Nguyen, Digital Scholars 2025

Hello! My name is Tina Nguyen and I’m part of the Digital Scholars 2025 cohort. For my internship, I was a Digital Marketing Intern under the UW Bothell Office of Academic Affairs with Sawyer Dedmon, Marketing & Communications Manager, as my supervisor.

Over the course of four weeks, I became well adapted to being flexible with the tasks that were requested of me. One week I was tasked with researching digital marketing and content strategies and analyzed various academic institutions’ resources to provide suggestions or potential improvements. Another, I was asked to contribute to the faculty spotlight blog and reach out to the respective faculty for their input. While the next, I was conducting an internal audit of the UW Bothell Graduate programs site. Each of these responsibilities granted me valuable opportunities to refine and build confidence in my skillset.

This internship experience is different from what retail or part-time experiences I’ve had prior. I felt unsure on what to anticipate, but I felt relieved and thankful for the inviting and relaxed nature of the office, of my supervisor, and the Academic Affairs faculty that I was able to meet during my days at the office. This internship allowed me to experience a portion of what professional workplaces can look like—whether in the event of a hybrid schedule, or having responsibilities that differ from day to day (but without the added difficulty of having to strike balance between an extensive list).

There were many people I luckily felt I could rely on during this program in the event I had any confusions. I frequently found myself contacting my internship peer to confirm details. My supervisor, as well as the program leads, provided plenty of opportunities to ask questions and ensured we had no concerns, through the use of emails as well as the weekly cohort meetings.

The aspect I felt was most challenging was simultaneously my most proud and rewarding achievement. Generally, I much prefer to be someone who does the work rather than the one presenting the work. While my peers worked on a different project in a pair, I was tasked to work on other projects and present the findings alone. It was nerve-wracking, but it was and still is a skill that I’d like to improve on, and I’m happy that by doing so, I’ll have lightened the workload for the office, even if just for a bit.

Moving forward, I would like to use the experience I gained from this internship to work towards contacting more faculty and more professors. I find myself often overlooking the knowledge, opportunities, and willingness to help that faculty have and can provide. I’ve found myself jumping the gun and struggling to find opportunities to become knowledgeable on my desired career path but this internship and program were a good reminder to rely on the resources that are already provided to me.

For future Digital Scholars cohorts, I would encourage them to be vocal about what they want. Whether during the initial phases of the program itself or during the internship, the Leads and supervisors can’t know what you’re thinking, feel is lacking, or want more of, and they would be more than happy to hear your concerns and do their best to aid. The program, after all, is intended for students to get the most out of their time at UW Bothell and University. For my cohort, many of us went with the flow of the program and I felt, didn’t form a stronger bond until the near end, despite figuring out we had many shared thoughts and opinions.

For supervisors, I was happy to hear that my peers were content with their experiences and appreciated the kindness, the willingness of their supervisors. I would encourage, if possible, talking to your interns and gauging what they’re hoping for. Speaking for myself (and I’m sure some other students out there), I’m not great at coming up with questions to ask and have associated internships solely with shadowing or learning, and subsequently felt it was more appropriate to do the work than being in a position to initiate any goals of my own. Oftentimes this leads to me not knowing, or wondering, what lessons or opportunities I may have missed out on because I didn’t know what to ask for.

Learn more about the Digital Scholars program at UW Bothell.