Today is the last day of my summer internship. My work is done – all the i’s are dotted and all the t’s are crossed, and my desk shows little sign that I have used it for the past 11 weeks. I have always hated endings. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t feel great to have finally stopped revising my PowerPoint deck and to have presented my work to the project leaders – the sense of [...]

As my internship winds down, this is a question I find myself being asked with increasing frequency. It’s an innocent enough question and is usually asked with genuine interest and thoughtfulness. It’s also a perfectly fair question. It’s not as though I haven’t given this thought – I came to HBS with a career plan that I have regularly reexamined and reconsidered as I discussed [...]

In my sixth week on the job, I finally got my first voicemail: “Hey Julie, it’s Erik. I just got out of a meeting and I’ve got a little side project for you, if you’re interested. Shouldn’t be more than a couple of days – would be a great learning opportunity. I’m heading back up to the office now, will stop by to tell you about it.” [Click]
Pretty cryptic, all things [...]

This summer I am developing a business plan for an online learning community. Last week, the software company that is developing the architecture for the platform came to discuss V1 with the powers that be. I got to sit-in at the meetings, both the mostly closed-door meeting and the broad audience road-show. I understood that while my presence was requested, I was not the target audience – I [...]

Walking into the lobby to complete all the necessary pre-employment paperwork, etc., I felt an unexpected sense of homecoming. I’d forgotten how much I liked hospitals. Go ahead, baulk. Call me crazy, say it’s not normal. I’m used to that. I know that to many, hospitals are scary, filled with disease and sickness – but to me, hospitals are powerfully human and fascinatingly complex. I [...]