Internships and apprenticeships are a time-honored rite of passage in many industries. We’ve asked some brilliant folks to share some of the most important lessons they learned during these early experiences in their career.

Samantha Bown

I know a lot of people in the tattoo industry talk about their internship as this horrible experience, dealing with the very negative things that are in the tattoo industry. I didn’t necessarily have the greatest time during my apprenticeship but the friendships that i made along the way definitely make up for it. the girls that i apprenticed with became more like sisters to me than coworkers or friends. we all still keep in touch and have been each others biggest support since the beginning. i learned a lot about not just tattooing but about myself during my apprenticeship. it really made me want to be a better version of myself because i realized that i didn’t want to be like the large majority of tattoo artists. i wanted to be able to stay true to myself whether or not that made me fit in the industry or not. Read more>>

Erin Pacitti

My very first internship experience was with an extremely popular daytime talk show. I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and showed up in L.A. with no car and no office experience–all I had with me was my laptop, one carry-on suitcase of clothes, and an $80 bike I purchased at Walmart to help get me around the city. Read more>>

Keeny Ndoudi

When I was in design school, I was so focused on finishing on time that I spent each summer doing classes full time. I didn’t get any internship experience, though I made it a point to try to connect with people in the industry through over avenues, such as conventions and fashion events. Read more>>

Vasavi Bubna

I was supposed to start college in the cursed year of 2020. Which meant that I would be thousands of miles away from my college, stuck in my parents’ house in Mumbai, India, taking classes in the middle of the night. As someone who had been romanticizing moving to New York City ever since I got my acceptance letter for the School of Visual Arts (SVA), this felt like the worst possible thing that could happen to me. I decided to take a gap semester, and got a six month long internship at Landor in Mumbai for this time period. I was fresh out of high school, with no real understanding of what graphic design really was. This internship was to get my toes wet, and understand how an agency functions. Read more>>