A good intern does what he is told. A great intern doesn’t need to be told what to do. Being a great intern is what will make you memorable.

At WIVB-TV Channel 4, Buffalo’s CBS affiliate, I get assigned a variety of tasks. These tasks are often odd jobs that the news producers and directors don’t have time to complete. They have busy schedules and a lot of other work to do, so these tasks are often delegated to me. One day I had to call the Wyoming County Board of Elections to get information on some of the candidates for the general elections. Another day I had to call ECMC and check on the status of a patient who was in a car accident. Some days I write for the web. Not all of my tasks are serious, though. One day I had the fun task of finding different trick-or-treat events happening around Buffalo on Halloween. These assignments are good experiences because they allow me to deal with real people about real situations.

However, these tasks I am given do not fill up all of my time at my internship. I need to make work for myself so I can be productive during my time here. While I have some downtime, I browse the WIVB website and the events calendar to see what is going on. I look at the news wires to see what is happening and what is about to happen.

On one particular day, I noticed that there was nothing on the website about Veterans Day. I thought that this seemed a little odd. That is why I decided to browse around the internet and find some upcoming Veterans Day events. I figured that this would be a good story to put on Channel 4’s website.

Once I had my idea, I went to work. After some internet searching, I had compiled a list of different Veterans Day events, memorials, parades, and celebrations. I made sure to include the time, location, and a brief summary of each event. I showed it to my supervisor and she was thrilled. The next day, my short story went on the web for all of Western New York to see. Hopefully someone found out about an event they hadn’t known about before. My supervisor was glad that I took the initiative and came up with an assignment of my own.

Initiative, it’s what will separate a good intern from a great one.