What are the three mistakes that an intern should avoid during his/her internship?
Ahmed
Mistake 1: Doing something that might adversely affect your reputation; you cannot afford to do that. Mistake 2: Not taking your job seriously and being unproductive and not motivated. In my view, you need to work harder than the employees because you are also spending time learning. Mistake 3: Isolating yourself. You should interact with other colleagues and participate in team activities.
If I change my job too often, say once in two years, would it have a negative impact on my resume?
Kavita
You will need to provide good justification for your action, as every organisation would want to know the reason. If your actions are well justified, then it should be fine. However, the judgment depends on company policies, culture and also on the sector you work. One thing that your future employer would try to figure out is how long would you stick with that organisation. In case your reason for frequent job change is not strong enough, sure it can hurt.
I am interested in too many things at a time. This dissuades me from focusing on one field. How do I choose my career path?
Aakash
Why do you need to force yourself to being focused on one field? For example, I studied in many universities and learnt many different things and I am glad that I did so. It is sad that life is too short to dedicate myself to other fields I would like to explore. Your job, or your career path, should be a place where you go with tons of passion and willingness to learn and excel. If you are still unsure about which one you want to do, just take the best one.
Does the design of a website play a major role in showcasing to users the strength of my product?
Jayant
It depends. Google has the simplest design ever, but strongly demonstrate the power of the product. 3D games have amazing designs to attract their players. It really depends on what you do, but I would say that we are now entering the age of the design and a well-designed website will outperform a boring one.
(Dr. Roberto Mariani is a serial technology entrepreneur and a former computer scientist. Questions can be directed to malavika@ hellointern.com or posted at www.hellointern.com/qna)
