I started my first day of internship with the hope that I am gonna be doing something IT-related yet far from coding and all those stressful moments trying to debug errors... only to find out that I am doing exactly that. For the next 6 months!
If you've read my Internship Application Story, you'd know that I am an intern, or Vacation Trainee as they call it, at KPMG Malaysia.
Stepping into the company (even though virtually), I can really feel the sense of belonging and very friendly working environment at this place. One of my favourite things about this company is how structured things are, but some might say otherwise because even though they might tell you the things you need to know early, this company sure doesn't tell you a lot.
It's my first time working in an MNC company and a firm as big as this so I'm both impressed and weirded to know that they really go all out to take care of their image. I won't go into detail bcos that'll be a little P&C but just know that the security and branding is their top priority. Like they really value those. There's even few assessments we have to pass for them to ensure that.
Moving on to what I do here. After meeting with the Head of Department on my first day, I was then assigned to a team. Basically it's a team of software developers and testers. So obviously, now I will be trained to do just that.
It's both interesting and scary to me bcos I really am not confident in my programming skills. Like it's the one thing I'm most insecure about. But I don't particularly hate it. In fact, I enjoy coding - granted I understand what I'm doing. And what's more fascinating is that I'll be working on a project that does not even use the programming language that I am familiar with haa
Instead of the good ol' PHP, I'm now forced to learn to program in Python. I'm actually really scared when I heard of Python because it's such a new and advanced language... while I'm just here being basic. It's one of the languages that I find difficult to approach at my current newbie level but now I don't really have a choice.
Frankly speaking, this current situation felt like a dream to me. It's weird that I was hired without them actually knowing my exact skills, but I am actually very thankful for that. It means that I have been given the opportunity of life to try out the one career I've always been very scared to try. I'm actually very excited to see how much I can grow through this internship because I can already feel myself making a little progress after just a week.
As a CS or IT student, one thing that your university (at least for me) don't teach is how the people in industry setup their working environment. I feel like this should be a class of its own. How can nobody ever teach me about Git? I've heard of Github a lot but how come nobody ever tell me properly what it is and how it works? It's such an important tool to collaborate when you code with a team. I've always been curious to know how people "compile" their codes especially when there's more than 4-5 people in a group (like it is in university) so it was very interesting to find out that Git was the answer.
On top of that, I am currently working from home unless told otherwise and it seems that it's gonna stay that way for sometime (or even til the end of internship, who knows). Surprisingly after getting my life back in the last sem, I don't feel too stressed out about it. In fact, I really like wfh.
For example, I'm usually very sleepy by noon and I remembered how I used to sleep in the toilet at my previous internship bcos I couldn't keep my eyes open in front of my laptop and was too embarrassed to sleep at my desk. Then at lunch, I used to worry a lot on where to eat and how much I'm gonna spend on food for the day bcos eating out will cost a lot and I don't want to spend too much of my already-limited-internship-allowance. And when it was time to go home, I used to always feel weird if I go home earlier than the permanent employees bcos it seems that interns need to stay longer every time (even when we literally have nothing else to do lol). Lastly, commuting to work. Commuting is one of the most tiring part of working. Not only does it take a lot of your time doing nothing, it also means that you have to leave your house way earlier which equals to less sleep time. Personally, that is my least favourite thing about working in the office!
I am very blessed to start my internship at home. Some might say it's a bit of a loss bcos internship is usually the best time to build connection with the people in the office and they're not wrong. However, not having to worry about the reality of things like transportation, lunch and getting tired at work, also allows me to focus and enjoy my skill-based work more, which is the main reason of doing internship.
Having done an internship before makes me see things in a different light and it might not be the case for everyone, but so far it's been good for me. Also a different work field might require more presence in the office than others, and fortunately my line of work suits wfh a lot.
The only bummer is that you can't see how busy your seniors really are and thus, you tend to expect a quick reply like how they would give if you were to ask them face to face. But they're already helpful and responsive enough for me, so it's not a huge deal and I appreciate them for that.
I'm expecting a lot out of myself during this internship and I hope I can get somewhere with my programming skills. Gotta let myself be as dumb as possible yet still sounding somewhat favorable so that I won't annoy my seniors too much 😅
Dropping by,
Melynn.
