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Anson and Forseberg’s text displays an understanding of the medley of emotions which pass through interns’ minds as they evolve into the professional atmosphere. The stages outlined – expectation, disorientation, and Transition and Resolution – almost exactly sum up my experience as an intern.

I have to agree with some of the other blogs that have been posted and have talked about not necessarily identifying with a particular stage in the "transition process." I put that in quotes because I do not believe in a set transition process for interns, recent graduates, or writers in the field. As, we evolve as writers, we evolve our talents, styles, and specialities in adjusting to the professional writing world.

I’d say that I’m definitely in the disorientation stage of all of this, as far as the stages of transition go. In my academic coursework, I’ve always been very lucky to have things come quite naturally when I’m writing something. In most cases, I generally receive positive feedback, even if the effort I put forth is completely 100%. I’ve always really taken that for granted, the seemingly natural ability to do well. So far, my internship has been a real wake-up call as far as that goes.

Something stuck out to me while I was reading Anson and Forsberg’s article “Moving Beyond the Academic Community: Transitional Stages in Professional Writing”. It was pretty early on in the article when they said; “Our research shows that becoming a successful writer is much more a matter of developing strategies for social and intellectual adaptations to different professional communities that acquiring a set of generic skills” (201). This too is something that I have been noticing as my internship moves forward.

Before I had started my internship at Watermark Properties, I definitely had certain expectations in my mind of what it would be like. Anson and Forsberg described this first stage perfectly: “Occasionally, perhaps because the new context is perceived as different from the known academic context, the intern may express some apprehension about applying his or her knowledge to the new situation” (208). Looking back, I was definitely timid when I first started. When I was assigned to write my first blog for Pour, I sat in front of my computer for twenty minutes - unsure what to do.

*If you'd like a good chuckle, read my last blog post, and then read this one. If you don't want to read the post here's a summary: Amy is grumpy and panics a lot because she is no journalist. The end.
Ok, please continue to the real post, as follows:

As I was reading the Anson and Forsberg’s article the first time through, I didn’t think I related to these three stages at all, solely because I have experienced the exact opposite of the harrowing situations that many of these interns encountered. I have the fortune of having a very understanding supervisor who has challenged me but has not made me feel nervous, incompetent, or uncomfortable. I know I can ask her when I need help, and I don’t feel like I have more responsibility than I can handle. I suppose I’m lucky in this respect.

After having to push the date of starting interviews, I was feeling a little worried about the state of the internship and my role in it. When we started our interviews the following week, I felt really great about where we were headed.

After reading "Protocols and Human Relations in the Corporate World: What Interns Should Know", it made me feel pretty lucky to be an intern with Rocket Science: A Creative Company. It seems to say right there in the name that it encourages people to be creative and fun as opposed to corporate and stuffy.

The stages of transition outlined by the reading for this week were 1. Expectation, 2. Disorientation, and 3. Transition and Resolution.

Expectation is how every intern starts anywhere. I am all to familiar with this feeling. I always manage to create this grand image in my mind of what I think I will be doing and how enjoyable and fulfilling it will be, only to find that it never really turns out the way I pictured it. Not that the actually experience ends up being disappointing necessarily, but it just turns out to be...different...than what I thought.