Commentary: The unexpected silver linings of internships in a pandemic era
SINGAPORE: Internships are a rite of passage for many young adults where they go their first proper taste of working life. They are a disquisitional component of a polytechnic instruction.
The sudden onset of COVID-19 nonetheless upended on-site work attachments. Despite the pandemic, we were glad that companies nevertheless took in our interns.
But providing a nurturing experience proved to exist difficult equally employers diverted their energy to deal with critical workplace issues such as business continuity plans and managing new COVID-19 protocols at the part.
Information technology was also the time when entire teams were working remotely, adding another layer of complexity for young interns who had to learn the ropes from home.
LEARNING NEW SKILLS AND Dust
Simply as businesses had to pivot to deal with new challenges, students likewise had to step up and larn to make the most of their experience outside of the traditional function surround.
For Felicia Goh, a humanities and social sciences educatee at Ngee Ann Polytechnic, her remote internship feel at a startup was like no other. She soon discovered that remote working required an immense amount of field of study.
She also had to quickly learn how to use online platforms such as Google Run across and Zoom for advice and to provide information in the most concise and effective manner.
What made a difference to Felicia was how helpful and encouraging her colleagues were. "They would patiently guide me via WhatsApp, Zoom or email whenever I sought clarifications," she said.
Some other claiming for many young interns who thrive on social interactions to stay motivated, is the limited confront-time with colleagues.
Cheryl Ong, a marketing and communications intern at a visitor offering online mental health support, felt "confined" and stifled at times.
She establish information technology difficult assimilating into a remote piece of work environment. With the heavy workload and steep learning bend that came along with working in a start-upward, she initially felt alone as she "had no i to turn to".
Yet, communicating in a virtual globe pushed students out of their comfort zones to be resilient and ultimately, make the most out of their internship experience.
This was a common sentiment echoed past our students at bank check in meetings with their respective staff advisors. Cheryl for instance, took the initiative to forge bonds with her colleagues outside of work, albeit remotely to gain a greater sense of connectedness.
The new remote mode of working also blurred the line betwixt work and personal life. With home and office sharing the same space, interns plant information technology hard to create healthy boundaries for themselves.
"It was easy to get distracted or procrastinate while working remotely and it started a roughshod cycle of working late until 3am or 4am, while having to wake up at 9am for work the next day," Cheryl said.
She eventually came up with a daily schedule of tasks to be completed by the stop of the day and she ensured this was done at regular piece of work hours. "I not only became more productive at work, only also managed to unplug from work on fourth dimension for a much-needed break," she said.
Even though remote working required a off-white bit of adjusting to, Cheryl learnt how to exist a fast learner and effective team thespian and so she could fit into the fast-paced work environs. "The biggest takeaway for me from this remote internship experience is that effective communication and asking for help are both critical, especially to working remotely," she said.
AN OVERSEAS INTERNSHIP AT Domicile
Equally businesses adjusted to the new normal, internships resumed some sense of normalcy. However, in some instances, experiences gained solely through a traditional internship was hard to supervene upon.
Internships in the tourism industry had undoubtedly been ane of the hardest striking amongst the pandemic, but interns gamely took upwards new opportunities in digital marketing and analytics.
Overseas internships too had to accept on a new form when travel became no longer possible. With the pick to work-from-home, some students might find cross-border opportunities to be less daunting. For the audacious few, taking upward a remote internship with a foreign company was the next best alternative for some semblance of an overseas experience.
1 intern took on a role for a Silicon Valley healthcare data analytics company. Not existence physically present had its downside because there was a significant "difference in the working feel because nothing could compare to working in another country and interacting with different cultures in real life," she said.
Even though COVID-19 put a dampener on her overseas internship experience, in that location were valuable insights in working for a Us-based company. She learnt how to determine her own learning curve and pushed herself to be proactive in engaging with her colleagues to bridge the physical split.
While remote internships for companies based outside of Singapore were challenging, a big benefit is students had admission to a global surroundings from domicile. They could however larn from these companies and juggle local commitments.
Banking and finance pupil, Jaslyn Khoo, had to cancel her trip to Australia due to the pandemic and adapt to Sydney's working hours for her internship at a fintech company. Not only was she pushed to adapt to a remote work environment, she also worked not-traditional hours from 6am to 2pm local fourth dimension daily – hours that required adjustments.
Although her internship was in an industry relevant to her field of studies, her task telescopic as an operations and special projects intern proved to be challenging. "It took me some fourth dimension and a couple of mistakes to proceeds proficiency in my role,'' she said.
But she picked up valuable skills like the backend workings of rolling out banking applications which she didn't get to learn in her course. For Jaslyn, the remote internship presented her with an opportunity to contribute to a high-profile project in collaboration with Westpac, 1 of the acme four banks in Australia.
COVID-xix has created a completely different way to look at overseas piece of work attachments. We accept had students who interned with companies globally from Shanghai, Jakarta, Bangkok to California, Helsinki and beyond.
They couldn't accept a flight to get at that place just they certainly learnt that working from anywhere is a novel alter that isn't going away someday soon.
Even with the gradual easing of restrictions, given the current uncertain travel situation, remote internships are here to stay in the foreseeable future and for IHLs, it is the next best alternative to onsite work attachments.
COVID-19 has also brought about unexpected silver linings for internships where immature adults learned to adapt and overcome short-term challenges while keeping their optics focused on long-term goals to thrive in a post-pandemic world.
Louisa Lau is head of Ngee Ann Polytechnic's Office of Internships and Careers.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/internships-polytechnic-students-working-home-pandemic-294916
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