We’re closing up the UTRUST Summer Camp internship program for the season, but we wanted to give you a rundown of what we accomplished. We launched the summer camp program as a way to continually develop fresh ideas and groundbreaking initiatives and we’re thrilled with how it turned out.
Quick disclaimer: This isn’t a short term job or volunteer work.
In 2019 UTRUST decided to make its internship program happen, so I set out to find teams which could benefit from a group of awesome interns. After designing a balance of challenges and opportunities we set out to align our goals with team coordinators and set expectations upfront.
As coordinator for this program it was my job to design the commitment of staff, and interns alike. I did this while linking everyone together to make a great experience while acting as a guide and mentor. This meant a lot of feedback and problem-solving. It’s a big job but ultimately it means that UTRUST will benefit from fresh perspectives while passing on knowledge to the next generation.
Why an Internship program at UTRUST?
There are some huge benefits to running an internship program. Of course, it costs time, commitment, and money, but we get a lot back for our investment. Here are just some of the opportunities:
- Personal development of current employees — especially mentors because they work closely with the interns and teaching is a great way to learn.
- Fresh perspectives to UTRUST current challenges. We’ve been working in this space for a long time so it’s always good to have a new take on an old challenge.
- Raised awareness for future recruitment processes — we might be hiring in the next few months, so it’s important that the best and brightest know about us.
How did we recruit for a Summer Camp program?
Our aim was to find candidates who are further away from graduation. We were trying to find younger candidates who could give us feedback as new users and stakeholders in our project. Meanwhile, it allowed them to develop their skills before getting ready to graduate from university.
While looking for candidates for this program I always asked myself if “I would hire them as a full-time employee?” While they might not have the same amount of experience, they should be a cultural fit for the company.
I also wanted to know what their desires are. Were they looking for money or experience? We know that UTRUST is looking for independent driven individuals that have a similar willingness to learn like everyone else in the company. We have new methods, tools, and technologies and we wanted them to make the best use of their time.
What did the program look like?
For summer camp, we hired 4 interns — Mariana Cardial, José Resende, Sofia Santareno and Angela Silva — one for each team — design, development, operations, and marketing, respectively.
All summer campers received per diems and this program required a commitment of 9 weeks of full-time work between June and August (we were flexible on start/end dates, day-offs… it is summer after all!).
Mentors had a couple of responsibilities but the most important one to retain is: keeping in mind that Interns are here to learn, not to perform.
During weekly sessions with mentors, I introduced concepts from a theory developed by Csikszentmihalyi in 1975, namely Flow Theory. This concept describes an optimal experience — the state of concentration and engagement that can be achieved when completing a task that challenges one’s skills.
This flow experience is exactly what I wanted to provide so we discussed how important it was that our interns’ tasks, inside their teams, were a perfect balance between challenging and rewarding.
How did you build the program?
This program was a team effort between the people manager (me), mentors and operations team. We got together to figure it out how to provide the best experience for 9 weeks. Knowing that this was our first internship program, we understood that it would be a work in progress.
We divided the summer into three sections — onboarding, programming and offboarding.
Onboarding week was fully dedicated to integration. We wanted to get to know the whole team make sure they feel part of UTRUST family. They didn’t have any specific contact with their teams. We just wanted them to just hang around with everyone.
During the second week, they were introduced to their own teams and their mentors. Next, they started to get their hands dirty with real projects. Over these next 7 weeks, they worked closely with their team to develop ideas and workflows together, as a summer camp team.
Onboarding Week Highlights
This first week was dedicated to getting to know the team and office dynamics/policies.
On the first day, we organized a welcome breakfast with the interns and the rest of the team. We got together at the office with lots of pancakes, and coffee. There we had the opportunity to get to know them and introduce our whole office. After some ice-breaking activities and informal meetings everyone was excited about the week.
On the second day, they had a session with one of our product managers, Martinho Aragão, where they learned everything about crypto, blockchain, and e-commerce. They also discussed our product and what challenges UTRUST has been facing.
From the third day until the end of the week our team developed some challenges written on cards related to our product, our company, and our team members. Interns had to solve each problem as best they could. Feedback regarding this activity was rewarding since the team had fun and our interns were excited about completing each challenge.
Internship Program Highlights
This portion of their experience was dedicated to working alongside our staff to learn and build the platform together.
From the second week onwards, the interns started to work, developing their tasks with their mentors’ guidance. This meant doing some real-world problem solving just like the UTRUST employees. Not only did this give our interns some experience with crypto, but it gave them a valuable taste of what it means to contribute to a project that is bigger than their own role. This phase lasted until the 8th week when we had to start saying goodbye to our interns.
Offboarding Week Highlights
During this period, everyone got a chance to look back at the last 8 week to find out what the experience meant for them.
This last week was fully dedicated to offboarding intern’s regular tasks and finishing their final reports. This was an important piece of reflection for our temporary colleagues but it was also a crucial tool for the UTRUST staff to understand what they learned. It’s important that we benchmark what we were able to teach as this was an important aspect of the summer camp program in the first place. Final reports were presented to everyone so that the entire group could understand lessons from everyone else in our final moments as a team.
What was the outcome?
So, we just got to the end of the summer camp program which means that we don’t yet know the outcome. We do know that our main goal of providing our interns with a great experience, was accomplished. They learned a lot but our mentor teams did as well. Having four new members of our office gave us a fresh take on what we’ve been working on as well as a peek into our future makers and markets.
As the main project coordinator, I could see a great impact on the UTRUST team. They were fantastic at integrating and adapting to the interns while making them feel comfortable. For our more introverted staff members, they were pushed to get out of their box and explore.
While this was our first experience with a UTRUST internship program we’re confident that it was a success. Most importantly it aligns closely with our values of life long learning. Developing the crypto ecosystem is something that takes new ideas and different perspectives. Programs like summer camp make sure that we’re always staying ahead of the curve.
Coming Home From Camp: Wrapping up the UTRUST Internship Program was originally published in UTRUST on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.