I didn’t set out to land a data analytics internship in Washington, D.C.
Honestly, I applied on a whim.
I hadn’t even seen the original job posting. Someone sent out the application in a blast email, and I just happened to click the link.
It looked like a government consulting firm hoping to bring on interns to help with communications and general project support. I assumed I’d mostly be drafting briefs or sitting in on strategy meetings, never realizing the position was actually on their data analytics team, responsible for powering campaigns with polling insights, dashboards, and trend analysis
One minute I was casually filling out the application, assuming it would disappear into the void like so many others. The next minute I was on a Zoom call with a government consulting firm, convincing them that my three years of undergraduate education in Public Relations might be of use to them.
I wasn’t bluffing about what I thought I could offer, but I definitely didn’t think it would go anywhere.
I was stunned when a week later I received an email letting me know I had gotten the position.
I actually read that email at least three times just to make sure it wasn’t politely telling me the opposite. I didn’t think I’d make it past the first interview, let alone be invited to come work with people who probably could do data analysis in their sleep.
After a few days of adjusting to the idea, and convincing myself that yes, I could in fact survive a summer in a new city surrounded by spreadsheets, I finally got comfortable with the idea of moving to D.C.
And then, about a week before I was supposed to leave, I got the call.
The company had just been acquired by a larger firm. Suddenly, I would no longer be working where I had applied.
A few days later they sent me an intern packet for the new firm. The packet read like it had been written for someone who builds algorithms for fun on the weekends. It was the kind of position I never would have applied for in a million years.
By then, I had already put down money on housing and given up my lease in Provo, so backing out was not really an option. I decided to make peace with this new reality, but relief never came.
As my start date got closer, I kept imagining the worst. Walking into a room where everyone knew I didn’t belong, getting assignments I had no idea how to tackle, or being asked a technical question that would give me away.
Accepting the transfer solved the logistics, but it did nothing for the knot in my stomach.
On my first day, I felt sick to my stomach. I knew four other interns had gone through the proper application process, and I was convinced they were all five steps ahead. While they probably spoke fluent Python, I was still figuring out how to set a secure password on my company laptop.
Imposter syndrome hit hard. I went to bed and woke up anxious, writing down every technical term I didn’t know to Google later. Part curiosity, part panic, I was sure at any moment someone would pull me aside and tell me I didn’t belong.
When I first met the other interns, they seemed so calm and confident in meetings. They barely asked questions and at times even seemed to be answering questions themselves.
Meanwhile, I was sweating bullets, hyper-analyzing every thought I had, and I did not dare speak up.
Seeing them so composed made me panic even more. I assumed they must know everything and that I was completely out of my depth.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that this was mostly me making assumptions.
As we got to know each other, I saw that even though their backgrounds might have prepared them more for the role, they were just as nervous as I was. They were scrambling to learn dozens of new systems and processes unique to this company.
I had a little ground to make up, yes, but I wasn’t starting from zero, and neither were they.
That realization helped me see that my anxiety wasn’t a flaw. It was just part of stepping into something new.
Looking back, I realize a lot of that panic came from the expectations I carried. I thought an intern had to know every acronym, every tool, and every process from day one.
In reality, no one expected that. What mattered was effort and curiosity, but I didn’t see it that way, and measuring myself against standards no one asked me to meet made everything feel ten times heavier.
After surviving the first week, I realized my anxiety didn’t have to be a weakness. I wasn’t the smartest in the room, but maybe I could be the most driven.
I started small by setting tiny learning goals, asking questions thoughtfully instead of panicking, and reviewing anything I didn’t understand after meetings. I also reminded myself not to assume everyone else knew more than I did.
Gradually, the fear began to fade and curiosity started to take its place.
I realized my anxiety was a signal that I wanted to perform well, but not proof that I was failing. Instead of fearing every misstep, I started seeing each small challenge as a chance to learn something new. I stopped measuring myself against an imaginary standard and started measuring against my own growth.
That is when I made it a goal to stop measuring myself against an imaginary standard and started measuring against my own growth.
At first, I overcompensated by asking too many questions and taking on projects I wasn’t ready for. One of the first was a weekly trends report, which quickly turned into a crash course in cleaning messy data, spotting anomalies, and turning numbers into clear takeaways.
When my supervisor praised how clearly I explained shifts in voter sentiment, I realized my eagerness wasn’t a flaw. It showed I cared and helped me build relationships with people who were happy to teach me what I didn’t yet know.
That moment showed me that sometimes, effort and curiosity can matter more than knowing every tool.
Anxiety pushed me to figure out what actually helped me get through the day.
I started jotting down questions instead of pretending I understood everything in real time. I followed up with people who took the time to explain things, and set small weekly goals to chip away at gaps in my knowledge.
None of it was planned, but it was these small strategies that slowly transformed anxiety into competence.
This experience changed my communication approaches as well.
I learned how and when it is best to ask for help, and I learned how to explain technical ideas or processes in ways that made sense to ordinary people (something my PR background helped me to accomplish).
Eventually, I stopped worrying about my qualifications and started focusing more on learning opportunities.
Looking back, it is clear to me that my expectations of what an internship was could not have been more different than the reality. No one expected me to walk in knowing everything about a brand new company, so why did I expect that of myself?
What was expected was a willingness to learn, effort, and even curiosity.
Measuring myself to some made-up and impossible expectations put me at a disadvantage. Instead I should have been focused on growth instead of perfection so that I could develop while enjoying my experience.
At the end of the summer, the internship I almost did not show up to offered me a position to continue working with them. Of course I was excited to receive the offer, but I was even more excited to receive confirmation that I do belong in spaces that feel out of reach.
By the last week of my internship, I was no longer the intern silently breaking down about not knowing how to change her laptop password. Instead I was someone who could sit in a room of professional analysts, and contribute effectively to the conversation.
By the end, I was explaining insights in client meetings and trusting my own judgment, a long way from late nights Googling basic terminology.
What started as a whim ended up being one of the most rewarding experiences of my college career. I learned that confidence doesn’t come from knowing everything; it comes from starting where you are and proving to yourself just how much you can learn along the way.