3/30/2015
Apprentice or Intern?
Peter Leonard
Spring is approaching, and along with it the internship season—that great reckoning for college students after four (sometimes five or six) years of booze-fueled ambivalence toward career advancement. Now, several years removed from that period, I find myself in a position to mentor a new generation of freshly minted college graduates testing the waters. Aside from prompting a serious examination of my bourgeoning flock of gray hairs, this stirred me to reflect on how my own experiences as both an intern and apprentice have influenced my career decisions. In doing so, I’ve come to hold a belief that the apprenticeship is the best mechanism for producing sapient workers and long-term value for a company.
My first official experience as a trainee came during high school. At my technical school, with alternating weeks of academics and vocation, upperclassmen were given the choice of going to school during their week of shop or working for a company in their trade. Fortunately, I found a local garden center willing to take a chance on a scrawny, immature teenager. Immediately, I was paired with a veteran nurseryman and sent to the trenches. I worked side-by-side with my mentor for the following season, building confidence and experience. I was treated as an adult—praised when I met expectations, lauded when I exceeded them. When I failed, I wasn’t chastised. Rather, I was instructed to reflect and try again. This investment in my development didn’t go unnoticed, as I enthusiastically came back to work every spring for the next six years throughout high school and college.
For my undergraduate degree, I decided to branch out and try my hand in the field of aviation, which led to an internship with the operations department at a commercial airport. This internship wasn’t paid, nor was I the only intern. I wasn’t paired with any specific individual or shift, but rather scheduled with a focus on exposure, not mastery. Assessments were performed by the operations manager, an individual whom I had only brief interactions with and were largely based on the completion of a checklist.
My previous experience had taught me that creativity and persistence were the marks of a good apprentice. However, in this role, I wasn’t an apprentice; I was an intern. I dutifully reported code violations as I found them, frequently being met with impassivity. Building constructive relationships with tenants and other departments was presented as a waste of time. However, opportunities to criticize staff when tasks weren’t performed to satisfaction were never overlooked. Employee turnover was high despite competitive compensation. It lasted just one year.
I had the good fortune to apprentice once again as a graduate student, having decided to return to horticulture, finding an individual with a reputation for mentoring students in my adviser. As with my first experience apprenticing, I was once again in an environment in which success was reinforced, failure was anticipated and building wisdom was the goal. This empowerment made me a more effective researcher, producing the studies that enhance a faculty member’s standing and university’s prestige.
Nobody’s born a natural. Are we predisposed with certain talents? Certainly. Gifts, however, are the realm of fantasy writers and helicopter parents. I wasn’t effective in my role as a nurseryman, researcher or grower until I was treated as one through the master-apprentice relationship. When treated as a commodity, as interns commonly are, I floundered. The organization rented a body for a year, but received little lasting value. Academically, my instructors had deemed me capable. The difference was in my experiences outside the classroom.
Despite the title falling out of favor, I can attest that apprenticeship is alive and well in our industry. In my experience, such an approach is an asset, one that takes the accumulated wisdom of one individual and supplements it with the eagerness of another. This achieves a synergy, the products of which are of lasting value for all parties.
GT
Peter Leonard is the Greenhouse Instructor at The Learning Clinic, a private agricultural school in eastern Connecticut.