SSC students share memorable summer internship experiences

The Department of Social Sciences (SSC) encourages students to take up internships during their undergraduate or postgraduate studies, where they can apply their knowledge, cultivate their strengths, and define their personalities. We believe the short-term work experience provided by internships are valuable opportunities for students to apply the knowledge and skills acquired at school and gain hands-on experience at a workplace.

This year, a number of students from SSC spent a fruitful summer holiday interning at different companies. These internships not only sharpened their workplace skills, but also gave them memorable experiences. Four of these students shared with us their favourite moments, personal reflections, new inspirations and valuable friendships they gained from their internship, as follows.

I have gained valuable and practical work experience through my summer internship at ISS, a leading workplace experience and facility management company.

As a student majoring in business, account and finance, I had no knowledge or hands-on experience about property management when my internship started. In fact, this was the first internship I had ever had in any workplace. When I felt unsure about how to start my work, a colleague advised me to ask for help whenever I had questions. In his words, “There are no stupid questions in the workplace.” To get myself acquainted with the job as fast as possible, I followed his advice and asked my teammates whenever I didn’t know how to carry out my tasks.

As I was an intern at ISS’ property and management department, I had the opportunity to help in the Owners’ Corporation Meeting (OCM), where I learnt the importance of communication skills in the workplace. OCM is set up to provide an interactive platform for residents to communicate and solve problems. The role in my department was to ensure OCM’s ability to function well in order to facilitate residents in resolving their conflicts effectively and ensure their other expectations were being met. To this end, proper word choices and the appropriate use of voice, gestures and facial expressions are important. My supervisor was very talented in this regard and I learnt a lot from him during my internship.

There are two takeaways from my ISS internship. First, I learnt more about my personality and abilities, and understood what kind of job matches my abilities and character the most. Second, I learnt things like how to communicate with my teammates and how to observe and blend myself well within the workplace culture. These are the things that one can only learn at a workplace.

I did my internship at Soap Cycling, an NGO that specialises in recycling soap bars and liquid soap from hotels in Hong Kong and overseas.

I was an intern at the HR unit of Soap Cycling. One of the main tasks of the unit is to ensure that manpower has been allocated in the best way possible, so that the activities of the organisation can be carried out in an efficient and effective manner. To achieve this, I needed to keep the available duty roster updated, and was expected to give frequent and quick replies to my colleagues on manpower arrangements.

Soap Cycling emphasises the importance of teamwork. During my internship, the organisation scheduled one bond-building activity every month so that interns from different units could grow more familiar with each other. One of the bond-building activities was making soap together. During this activity, ethnic minority members of the MEY (Minority, Elderly and Youth) Programme of Soap Cycling came to teach us how to make soap. The activity helped us to learn more about each other, which was essential for cross-unit cooperation.

Being one of the many initiatives of Soap Cycling, the MEY Programme aims to empower minority groups, the elderly, and youth in the Kwai Chung neighbourhood by teaching them how to make soap products for the needy. I found that many elderly members of the MEY programme love to learn. They are lifelong learners. They taught us how to make soap using food colour additives.

Soap Cycling holds many workshops in cooperation with different companies and organisations. Usually, there are corporate workshops organised for company staff on weekdays and public workshops held for the general public on Sundays. These workshops teach participants how to use leftover soap to make soap bars and liquid soap.

Most soap bars produced at the workshops are sent to the Philippines. I learnt during the internship that the average daily salary for a worker in the Philippines can be as low as HK$26. A bar of soap can cost them six to seven Hong Kong dollars, which is equivalent to the price for 1kg of Carabao meat. After the prices of daily necessities rose even further following typhoons during the summer, ordinary workers in the Philippines can hardly afford to buy daily necessities. Sending recycled soap to low-income families in the Philippines can help improve their sanitation and hygiene conditions.

Soap Cycling also serves the local community. Liquid soap can be used as shampoo or shower gel. Once we prepared bottles of shampoo and shower gel, we distributed them to disadvantaged people living in Sam Shing in Tuen Mun. In Sam Shing, we met many people who brought their own bottles for shampoo and shower gel refills. They appreciated our work very much and were very grateful.

Interning at Soap Cycling gave me a very meaningful and special experience. I learnt how to explain our mission to people, how to sort soap leftovers, and how to fill bottles with liquid soap and distribute the final products to people in need.

The internship made me a warmer person who is more sensitive to the needs of people. I was a timid person before the internship. Now, I have the courage to take the initiative to talk to people, break the ice and introduce myself. It has helped me step out of my comfort zone. The internship also improved my presentation skills, as I needed to share the mission and vision of Soap Cycling with people frequently. All these skills and experiences acquired during the internship will be helpful for whenever I teach big classes of students in the future.

Being an intern at ISS was my first time working in an office environment. The internship programme gave me the opportunity to test the waters and see whether I am suitable for office-based work.

I was very excited by how the internship programme at ISS had arranged for me to work at five different public and private hospitals: Hong Kong Infection Control Centre (HKICC) at North-Lantau; United Christian Hospital at Kwun Tong; Princess Margaret Hospital at Kwai Chung; Alice Ho Miu Ling Nethersole Hospital at Tai Po; and CUHK Medical Centre at Ma Liu Shui.

During the internship, I was assigned to take up different tasks in different departments at ISS, such as administrative support, operational support at the laundry unit, patient portering, and customer service. I think the most valuable lessons I learnt were about how frontline workers and colleagues carried out their jobs. It allowed me to observe closely how they worked as a team, and how they dealt with issues raised by clients. These observations gave me a concrete idea on what it is like working in a workplace, and enlightened me on the importance of soft skills – such as communication skills – in solving workplace problems.

After the two-month internship programme, I had a heightened awareness of the importance of being empathetic and patient. I have also gained the confidence to build relationships with co-workers and clients of different types. These qualities were especially consequential when I needed to face frontline workers and clients. I observed that in a hospital, most problems were caused by insufficient understanding. When issues occur, colleagues-in-charge need to show that they understand the problem and are trying hard to find a solution that takes everybody’s concerns into consideration. However, this takes time.

All in all, I think empathy and patience are the two most important abilities that I need to nurture for my future jobs. I also became aware that communication skills play a key role in workplaces.

Fredie Hung Ethnic Minorities Service (FHEMS) is an NGO dedicated to promoting cultural diversity, facilitating inter-racial mutual understanding, and enhancing the well-being of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong.

Before joining the internship programme at FHEMS, I had sparse knowledge about ethnic minorities, knowing little about their culture, countries and languages. The first event I joined as an intern was a workshop on the Cantonese language held in April. The workshop marked the first time I interacted with ethnic minority groups. I was surprised by how active and hardworking ethnic minority participants were in the event. FHEMS organised another activity, called M-days, in May. It was the biggest event during my internship, where staff and volunteers from FHEMS delivered face masks and other pandemic prevention resources like hand sanitisers to the people served by FHEMS. The M-days event was my first time interacting so closely with ethnic minorities, and I was surprised by how they remembered I was a student interning for FHEMS the next time we met.

We had good chats during M-days. Some of the ethnic minority members shared with us information about their jobs and family situations. Some of them told me interesting stories about their hometowns. Some told me that they enjoyed their lives in Hong Kong. They said their kids were born here, studying in local schools and being a part of the community. Some of them told me that their businesses are stable and running well in Hong Kong.

However, I also heard that some ethnic minorities are suffering from tough situations: unemployment, unstable jobs, family members with COVID-19, and a lack of social support. I believe that every ethnic minority group has their own stories to tell, and M-days gave me a platform through which I could learn more about them.

We can’t understand the lives of ethnic minorities without walking into their communities. During the internship, other staff and volunteers from FHEMS and I went to Chungking Mansions to sample African and South Asian food, and had a walk inside the mansions to explore the different facets of ethnic minority life. Fredie Hung, founder of FHEMS, took us for a walk in Yau Ma Tei, where we visited the Nepalise Association and stores owned by ethnic minorities in Sai Kung Street.

Fredie led us to explore the neighbourhood where ethnic minorities live and explained to us the nitty gritty details about ethnic minority stores and restaurants, as well as their languages and house decorations. On another occasion, I visited an Indian Temple and a mosque in Wan Chai together with other people from FHEMS, and tasted Halal Dim Sum. Fredie always said, “Food is the first thing an intern needs to know.” He used food like naan, dosa, paratha, roti, and chapati to teach us the cultures of India, Nepal, and Pakistan.

While being a social worker is my dream job, my preference is to serve special education needs (SEN) or ethnic minorities. The internship at FHEMS not only expanded my horizons about ethnic minorities, but also improved my office skills. I learnt how to use Canva for creating SEN posts and Chinese typing. Fredie also taught us Excel formulas and how to use Excel systematically and skillfully. I spent a very rewarding time interning at FHEMS. It was such a wonderful experience.