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Proper Etiquette for Asking Help as an Intern

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Software Engineer Intern at Taro Community22 days ago

After watching the videos Taro kindly provided on internship success series, I learned the importance of diversifying my mentors beyond just my intern manager.

I really like this idea, but at the same time, I want to do so in a way that does not make my intern manager feel sidelined.

What I am thinking is the following:

  • if IM is busy, ask another member of the team who is familiar with the domain of my question.
  • Circle back with the IM and let him/her know which peer helped me with my question.
  • Thank the peer for helping me out.
  • Write a workplace post every week. In that post, give thanks to everyone who helped me.

Do you think this thought process is reasonable, or is there anything important I'm missing?

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Discussion

(2 comments)
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    Senior Software Engineer at Company
    21 days ago

    I'm not familiar with Meta-specific dynamics, but the approach sounds reasonable overall. If it's a question that others are likely to face as well, you might document the solution or otherwise disseminate the information you received so it's not just you benefiting from the question answerer.

    In terms of asking for help in general, I think it's critical to 1) provide the full context for the problem you're facing 2) describe what steps you took yourself to try to solve the problem and why they didn't work. Whoever you're asking for help is probably going to ask you for 1) anyway, so you might as well be preemptive and save both of you time by providing that context up front. Context is also incredibly important for giving you the right answer to your question. 2) is important because it demonstrates initiative, and people are more likely to help if you show that you tried to unblock yourself independently vs. immediately ask to be spoon-fed the answer.

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    Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
    20 days ago

    If you ask your IM for other members of the team who are good to know/can help you, they won't feel sidelined at all if you end up asking for help from those people. Something else you can do is ask in a more public channel like a bigger Work Chat thread or a Workplace group: https://www.jointaro.com/course/ask-great-questions-that-get-great-answers-quickly/be-clueless-in-public/

    Write a workplace post every week. In that post, give thanks to everyone who helped me.

    This is a great idea. Make an update post for your intern project every week and use it as a natural avenue to give thanks. This is pretty standard at Meta for FTEs, so it's impressive if an intern can do it.