Come third year or final year in college/university, we are all busy hunting for internship placements. From preparing resumes, emailing the HR department, keeping phone close at all times anticipating calls from companies, phone interviews… it can all be very stressful. I remember how I refreshed my inbox every 3 minutes hoping there would be an e-mail offering me a placement. Here are 8 things your internship will teach you.
1. Pretending to be busy is harder than being busy
There are days where you do absolutely NOTHING all day long. If you are in a company with an open-office concept, everyone can see everything you do so you have to work very hard to pretend to be busy. *open random file, stare at monitor and thinking about what to have for lunch/dinner*
2. But sometimes, you will be so busy you wouldn’t realize it is already 5.30pm
While there are days that the most exciting thing you do is assign colours for Excel cells, there are days two hands won’t suffice. Though it’s interesting being introduced to things that you never learnt in a lecture hall, more often than not, you may end up doing random tasks like photocopying or gluing envelopes, which to be fair, are not taught in lecture halls too.
3. Plan your travel time wisely
Planning your travel time the first few days of internship may be tricky. Especially if you work in an unfamiliar place and is not accustomed with the public transportation and unpredictable jams yet. Unless your route to work involves Federal Highway and LDP, because they are friggin’ jam every day.
4. How awesome coffee machines are
Most people do not own a coffee machine at home. So once you get a chance to intern or work at an office, you realise the magical thing that are ‘coffee machines’. Instead of having to make your own drink from scratch, the machine dispenses black coffee, white coffee, latte, cappuccino, mocha, and my favourite hot chocolate by a push of a button.
5. Have proper breakfast or risk having your colleagues hear the whale dying in your stomach
In the rush to get to work on time, you may tend to skip breakfast or just gobble down a bun on your way to work. However, it may not be enough and by 10.30am you would have to cover your rumbling stomach by coughing or quickly starting a short conversation.
6. Ignore the annoying colleagues
Being “only an intern”, you are most likely to not be taken seriously. There will be senior staffs who make you get them coffee or even worse, be reluctant to teach you something even when you ask. Don’t be hurt by what they do though, toughen up and keep a strong upfront. The weaker you appear to be to them, the meaner they’d be to you.
*no, don’t flip them the bird tho
7. You will meet some of the nicest people and friends
While some of the permanent staffs may be mean to you, you will be also mean some really nice people that would make the former not worth mentioning. There will be colleagues you can be comfortable around and those who don’t care about the “seniority” status. Those are the people you will look forward to lunch with, gossips in the pantry and “Group Conversations” in Microsoft Lync or Whatsapp.
8. Internship is, on the whole, an AWESOME experience
Despite the rush for the LRT, the fear of messing up something at work and the occasional boredom, internship is most definitely something to look forward to. You will be exposed to the industry and working environment, get hands-on experience, meet great people, learn something new every day and have fun. In short, internship=awesomeness!
