Four SSC students share memorable summer internship experiences

Internships provide a valuable opportunity for students to apply the knowledge and skills acquired at school and gain real-life experience at a workplace. The Department of Social Sciences (SSC) encourages students to take up internships during their undergraduate or postgraduate studies most suited to their area of study, strengths and personality. This year, a number of students from SSC spent a fruitful summer holiday interning at different companies. These internships not only sharpened their skills, but also gave them unforgettable memories. Four of these students shared with us the joys, reflections, inspirations and friendships they gained from their internship, as follows.

I am grateful to have had the chance to work in ISS, a leading workplace experience and facility management company, this summer. During the internship, I was assigned to the Healthcare Segment of the company where I assisted my supervisor and was involved in several product execution and promotion projects for two months.

Miss Carol Wong, my supervisor, and Mr Alex Leung, Associate Director of the Healthcare Segment, were very nice to me. They included me in their projects, asking me to take up two tasks: first, to introduce an inspection cloud platform called E-patrol to hospitals; and second, to present E-patrol to hospital managers and users who had never used E-patrol. E-patrol is a new management method that transforms traditional patrol control into a more intelligent, humanized and streamlined method of patrol management.

I felt stressed initially when I was asked to handle these tasks because I lacked the knowledge to manage them. Fortunately, my supervisor was kind and patient. She guided me to ensure that my work was on the right track from the outset. She explained how I needed to carry out each project task and taught me how to communicate well with others.

I am grateful for the valuable opportunity to work with such a warm team. The people I met at ISS were very kind and taught me many things that cannot be learnt from textbooks. I would especially like to thank my supervisor and Mr Alex Leung for not only teaching me professional skills at work, but also inspiring me for my future career and life plans. I greatly appreciate the efforts made by the Department of Social Sciences in arranging the internship opportunity, which will definitely be helpful for my future development.

I learnt a great deal during my internship at ALPHA Education. The main goal of ALPHA Education is to promote a critical-historical inquiry of World War II in Asia that contributes to peace and reconciliation. During my internship, I was tasked with conducting a research project to analyse human rights behaviours in the Nanking Massacre and facilitate critical discussions based on various evidence and behaviours observed during the war.

Managing a research project improved my skills in finding and sorting out information. It gave me a better understanding of academic research. Since I was little, I have passively received historical information about the Nanking Massacre from my parents and elders, but this historical information is mixed with personal feelings. At ALPHA Education, I needed to think about the massacre from the perspective of academic research. That meant detaching myself from these feelings to carry out critical analysis for a more objective picture, using historical materials.

The final product of the project was something similar to a textbook. I included some questions in it that would guide students to read and understand the massacre in greater depth. The questions led students from a shallow understanding to a deeper reflection of the issue, and were designed to help students strengthen their own ability to think and discuss historical issues without looking at an article.

Working at ALPHA Education gave me a deeper understanding of what education is, and what good teaching materials are. These are all essential to my study at EdUHK. I enjoyed communicating with the teachers at ALPHA Education, which broadened my horizons, inspired my thinking, and gave me many opportunities to exercise my oral English. During the two-month internship, I met many excellent classmates and understood more about my shortcomings. All that I have learnt is sure to motivate and energise me in my future studies.

I worked as a temporary human resources assistant in G4S for a three-month internship in the past summer. G4S is a leading global integrated security company providing security solutions, including manned security, security systems, and secure facilities services. It is currently the world’s largest security company. My duty was to assist in the recruitment of security guards, including sourcing and recruiting applicants by making use of databases, making phone call invitations, and utilising social media like WhatsApp and Facebook. I also posted job advertisements through different channels such as Moovup. My major tasks were arranging and interviewing applicants in order to recruit capable staff for the company. I also handled issues related to new joiners and admission procedures.

Apart from getting to know many wonderful colleagues, I gained a deeper understanding on the function of human resources at a company. I also gained many valuable skills, such as interview skills. For example, I learnt how to guide an interview and how to screen job applications, and assess attributes of candidates based on their work experience, education background, and interview performance. I also learnt how to be a good team player by communicating with my team at the human resources department and operation department. To cooperate well with other colleagues, I needed to be open-minded to sharing and accepting new ideas. Another important thing I learnt was to be respectful and be a good listener. Candidates have different cultural backgrounds, education levels, work experiences and personalities. As a recruiting staff member, I needed to be respectful and friendly to all candidates regardless of their background, and uphold the company image well.

The internship experience will help me fit in the workplace better in the future. It will also enable me to better adapt to fast-paced work environments and different corporate cultures. From a career development perspective, this internship experience has broadened my mind about the fields and positions I can choose from for my future career. As a social sciences student, I believe I can work in the business sector successfully as well. The internship experience had me thinking about my career interests and encouraged me to find a job suited to my interests and strengths after graduation. A human resources position is definitely one of the options that I would consider.

Over the summer holiday, I did an internship for three months at Eco Travel Limited. The company’s main business is organising eco-certificate courses and eco-tourism trips for the public. With an aim to promote the concept of re-examining the relationship between humans and nature, Eco Travel organises tours under the themes of ecology, culture and sustainability.

My major task was to assist in promotional work in local secondary schools and carry out administrative work, such as answering telephone enquiries, packing materials that might be used during the tours and tidying up returned materials. The administrative work, which required me to finish many complicated and repetitive steps, helped me to develop favourable qualities for the workplace, such as carefulness and patience. Moreover, my time management skills saw great improvement as several tasks were assigned to me when I joined the company, and I was required to finish them before the end of my internship. I learnt how to be smart about the order of my tasks; for instance, I would plug the audio guides in for recharging before tackling other administrative work, so that the audio guides would be fully charged by the time I finished.

I enjoyed the friendly and supportive atmosphere at Eco Travel. My colleagues were patient to teach new learners, answering any questions I had related to the work and teaching me knowledge about ecology, culture and sustainability. The team spirit and positive atmosphere in the workplace encouraged me to work proactively, and I’m sure these attributes will benefit my career development.

The internship also gave me the opportunity to help with the promotional activities organised by the company during the Hong Kong Sports and Leisure Expo in July. While I manned the company booth at the event, I needed to introduce tours and courses that explore the natural habitat of Hong Kong to the public. I had never taken any course about Hong Kong’s ecology before my internship. As I had little knowledge of this topic, my attempts at promoting such tours and courses were unsuccessful at first. Seeing the difficulties I was facing when carrying out this task, my supervisor provided me with some background knowledge about the courses and tours. My colleagues also explained the vocabulary usually used in the eco-travel industry, and answered many of my questions.

With their help, I learnt about eco-tourism and finished my promotional work successfully. I was able to understand the needs and interests of the visitors and provide them with the content and knowledge they wanted. I hope this stokes their interest in eco-tourism, and that they keep Eco Travel in mind going forward.

Coco Yau Wai-kei is a fourth-year student of Bachelor of Social Sciences (Honours) in Global and Hong Kong Studies.