Waking up at 6:30 a.m. to catch a 7:45 a.m. bus and not getting home till 6 p.m. doesn't sound like the most glamorous way to spend 11 weeks of your summer. But I can’t imagine spending it any other way. When you find an internship that actually used the skills that you’ve spent three years of school acquiring and perfecting, six hours of sleep is worth the experience.

Here are 4 things you should take away from your internship.

1. Discipline

While you’re there to gain experience in a field that you want to work in, you’re also there to train yourself to get to work with little to no instruction. The internship acts as your gateway to the workforce. The experience transfers you from the classroom to a cubicle, at the head of a class or even studio. You’re gifted with an office of individuals who are passionate about their field and show you what it takes to do their job. Their knowledge is free; you only need to ask the questions.

2.Experience

If you’re doing the same task over and over again, ask for a new one. Ask to do something that you’re not familiar with so you can become better. You should walk away from your internship, maybe not proficient at a new task, but with enough confidence to say “I can do this, just give me a little time”.

Not only should you gain confidence in a new skill, but have the ability to use this skill after the internship has concluded. Be able to demonstrate and/or explain what you’ve learned during your internship. If you can’t explain or demonstrate what you’ve done, be able to show people what you’ve done. Be proud of the work you’ve put forward and the skills you’ve learned.

3. Contact

Making connections is a part of what makes an internship different from just shadowing someone or jumping right into your career. Creating relationships during your time as an intern will help you when you need contacts in the future or if you have questions about the field. When you allow yourself to open up to your supervisors and the people within your cubicle community, not only do they give you yummy tea (seriously the bomb!), but you get a better understanding of what they do and who they are.

4. Ideas

Towards the end of my time with Trilogy Health Services I had ideas jumping out of my head. They dealt with health care, seniors’ vision and how our society is leaving them behind. Once your time has ended you should have ideas on how to make the field better- even if you don’t know how to execute them. Having those ideas and passing them off to someone who knows how to get the ball rolling could make the big picture that much grander.

Sometimes we don’t have the best ideas when we conclude our internships. Sometimes they focus on ourselves, which is perfectly fine. Your internship is about exploring what facet of your degree you like the best, and what career path will best suit you. For me, the worst part was sitting indoors, but I also had the freedom to walk around the office and talk to people and even take walks around the building. Those walks provided time for me to think about if I really wanted to work at a cubical as a long term career. . . and I guess I don’t. And that’s okay.

When concluding, you should feel something. Happy it’s over, that you did it, sad that you didn’t make as many connections as you could have, or even excited that you’ve found that your degree isn’t worthless. It’s important to document that. Document why you decided to take that internship and what it meant to you. For me, it meant that an English degree is truly versatile.

When I applied for Trilogy Health Services I didn’t think I was good enough. I thought the job for was someone that was majoring in communications, knew Excel inside and out, was interested in working with senior citizens and had a passion for healthcare. None of that was true. All I needed was a passion for what I was doing, from auditing over 100 Facebook pages, adding tags to videos, creating blog posts, asking a thousand and one questions, and writing a report at the end of each day- all that mattered is that I gave everything 101 percent.

You should leave your internship with coffee-stained lips and a brain full of new material and skills. Leave with confidence and the knowledge that you’ve done your best, and that your forty thousand dollar education will be worth it. Besides, graduation is quickly approaching and it’s a little late to switch majors.