I believe that my internship experience so far has given me a unique view on dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity. From the very beginning of my internship the time I was meant to arrive was not communicated well and I was there an hour to early. After that things remained uncertain but I have begun to adapt to those ambiguities and make them part of what I expect. I have worked 5 days at my internship and each of those days have been completely different from the last. From a starting point the field I am interning in is something unfamiliar to me. I did not know anything about real estate going into this internship so I am learning most things from scratch. On top of this new field, I never know what task I will be doing the next day. This leads to me to go into a day not really understanding what my objectives are or what that day will look like and that is kind of a stressful situation to be in.

I also experience uncertainty/ ambiguity throughout the day at my internship due to me being new to the job. The tasks I am doing is something that those around me have done for years so I need to work hard to try to keep up with them. Obviously the more I do a task the more proficient at it I become, but it is rare that I feel an expert in anything. That isn’t surprising to me and is encouraging to me that I am not overconfident so I won’t make as many mistakes because I am careful.

I have been trying to deal with the overall uncertainty by trying to not have positive or negative expectations. My goal while here is to learn so if there is something that I don’t know then that’s a better opportunity than doing a task I do know. I can learn how to do it and become better the more practice I get. When it comes to the more specific ambiguities the most powerful tool is to ask. Like I said above, the people around me are very experienced and friendly and can help me to work through something I don’t understand. Though this is easy to say in theory, in practice it is very difficult not to feel like I am bothering my co workers when I ask questions. Though I know in hindsight that it is more important to ask a question and do something right, it feels like I should understand and remember things the first time even though I know that is unreasonable.

The main piece of uncertainty that I believe makes my experience unique is that I will be moving to a new office tomorrow. As something is done more it becomes more familiar and just as I was getting used to the uncertainty of my previous role at the office I have been working at, it is time for me to move. I will be working at this new office for two weeks and then returning to the office I have been working at. Though I will be working under the same umbrella company, I know things will be very different at my location. This new uncertainty presents itself in many ways. I will have new coworkers who I don’t know how I will mesh with, I will have new tasks that I don’t know what they are and probably won’t know how to do and I will have a new routine when coming and going to work.

Being lucky enough to get to experience different work environments is something I am grateful for, however it is still an uncertain and stressful situation. I plan to deal with this situation the same way I have dealt with my previous uncertainty’s. I want to remain open minded and try to absorb as much information as I can. I want to ask questions and keep my expectations neutral so as to not be disappointed. It won’t be easy getting into a new routine after not even being fully integrated into my last one but if I can navigate through the uncertainty I will definitely get as much out of this experience as I can.