Why did you choose to complete an Internship?

Well, it was part of the course, didn’t have a choice there. However, there is a famous saying, “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” As a student, I had only experienced one-sided learning where a lecturer would lecture, just the usual stuff. There was minimum practicality and involvement with the outside world. And being an international student here in Australia further increases that curiosity to see what is happening in an Australian workplace environment.

Therefore, my curiosity coupled with the course’s requirement got me an internship. 

What have you learned the most during your internship?

Frankly, it was an intense internship, there was work every day and everyone would be there in the office before the office starts and finishes. I was initially provided with simple tasks and slowly progressed towards more complicated ones. To differentiate academic learning from workplace learning is that you “do things to learn” and not “learn things to do”. To summarise, the three main things that I learned during my internship:

1. The ability to get things done! - You're going to be asked to do things you haven't done before and learn to do things quickly.

2. The ability to get multiple things done! - You need to learn to set objectives and your milestone and deal with uncertainty.

3. Ability to work with people – Working with people is tough, but the truth is you have to work with other people and communicate with them.

What benefits do you feel Australian Internships contributed to your internship?

There are not enough words to explain the benefits that I found while doing my internship with Australian Internships. To put it into simple words, imagine you travel to a new city all by yourself. You arrive in this city, but you do not know how to reach your destination. Wouldn’t you ask someone for navigation? Now imagine, someone like that always giving you direction but in terms of career progression and internships until you finish your placement. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

They make our life easier! You just need to give in your details, they match us with the hosts, arrange an interview, if we match, the internship starts. There is a lot of help provided during the internship as well and workplace insurance makes you assured that you are covered too.

What advice would you give future interns regarding internships?

What I’ve learned from my internship is that, internships matter! Be it virtual or not, learning that happens in academic closed walls is always limiting. Outside these walls, you meet like-minded people, you explore solutions with your knowledge and skills, you test your boundaries and finally, you understand the purpose of what you have learned in a university. Choose an internship rather than two credit modules, you will thank me later!

What do you enjoy most about Australia?

Sun, surfing, and laidback lifestyle. Excellent roads, nice food, pleasant weather, little pollution, decent economies, inexpensive life in general (well housing prices in the major cities are currently an issue). There was a bit of fear-mongering before I came here that how everything here tries to kill you especially spiders and crocodiles, but that is only if you do something stupid in remote areas. Bottom line, there is everything for everybody to enjoy life here.