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| Unworthy Experience As a Practical Student |
When studying in college, all students are required to do an internship as part of course programme. Internship (or so called practical), you need to find, apply and temporarily work at any company related to your field of studies for a period of 3 or 6 months. Mine is taking Bachelor of Science Architecture at local university and will share to you my journey as an architecture practical students throughout 6 months period.
"I am now at Semester 5 of studies. With another 2 semester to go before graduation, this semester need us to do our internship for 6 months period. I start to seek some of architect firms to place myself and of course my preferences will be somewhere nearby my house. However, at 10 firms that i apply only 2 firms gives a reply after 2 weeks! As some of my friends already got their placement earlier, and the pressure comes when i need to make a decision to choose the firms (1 in Subang Jaya and another is in KL) that i want to go as the dateline is just around the corner."
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"After few days of thinking, finally, i had make my mind to choose the offer from RDA Harris Architecture, Kuala Lumpur. During this tenure, i will be paid RM500/month as internship allowance which i think quite reasonable rate for practical students nowadays . Some of my friends received around RM700/ month and some dont receive any allowance at all (for those who did their internship at government agency). Things to highlight, even you just a practical stidents, please request Letter of Offer to the company HR as it will stated your internship period, your allowance, benefit, working hours, etc in black & white. This offer letter also as a prove copy to your college stated that you already have placement."
The Very First Week Experience
"First day of internship, i arrived at 9.00am at the office, not much staff had arrived during that time and i been showed my workplace by the HR. I can say its quite good workdesk for a practical students as they give you PC and some stationaries. There is no proper introduction session and i just greet everyone to introduce myself. For the first time, i had met my supervisor in charge. Technically, all task will be given by him and i do ask what should i do now and he told me to study the company profile and on-going projects first at this moment. About a week there and i am still not receive any architecture related task. Just read and study the project file for a week. Not so interesting right?"
In this week, i was got scolded by the director of the company. All this happens when i introduce myself when i was still sitting and not stand up to greet her like any other staff did. The issue is how i know she is a director even there is no proper introduction session?.
I Dont Know What I Am Doing
"On the second week, my supervisor still haven't give me any task. I feel like doing nothing there when everyone is busy. I do offer myself to help but got rejected due to no experience in doing such task. I felt something was not right happened and I straight away get my supervisor and asked for a task. Yes, finally got my first task but guess what? it just a very basic task where I need to calculate the area of the building only. To show how excited I am, I just take a day to finished it and bring the report to him then only he told me that i had 2 weeks time to complete this task. What do you think my feeling that time?"
"Next task was to design all signage for a high-rise project at Bandar Sunway that currently under construction. Dont expect it is good task instead I just need design and propose small scale signage, something like Surau, Room number, Keluar etc and my supervisor give me a month for me to complete the proposal. Again, I still unable to get any architecture drawings to work on."
Finally It's Site Visit Time
"It takes 3 months until I managed to went for a site visit. As an architecture students doing internship, visiting an under construction site really helps us on understanding the design and construction. During this visit, i just followed my supervisor on the site meeting, did some inspection etc. On another day, the next site visit was in Ulu Yam, Selangor more like site survey as our firm was proposing to built like some kind of recreational place there and my role was to assist town planner doing some site study."
The Next Few Months. Still Unworthy
"My primary task still unchanged as I still did some building area calculation, determine the total number of car park bays and also the signage design proposal. I haven't got any chance to involve in any drawing-related task yet. Being a practical student also limits your voices, makes you need to always accepts all instructions given. Got one time I had been asked to work during weekends but anyhow, it is just one time event only."
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"During internship, we need to record our daily task and activity in a logbook for as part of course programme. Your Lecturers also will visiting all the practical students placement. But not me as my firm was not selected in their visiting list which is good things too, scared if they discovered what i am actually doing at that firm might surprise them and affecting my grade later on."
Finally my internship is going to end. To conclude my experience doing internship at RDA Harris Architecture, you can find my summary below:
+ Working environment: Not so good at all. The atmosphere there quite stress as everyone busy doing their job. Top management is strict and not so friendly unlike the staff there which are friendly and really helpful.
+ Allowance: The payroll is on-time and since i dont have any leave allocation, all my leave taken is considered as unpaid leave.
+Knowledge Gain: Not as my expectation. The task given was too simple and not challenging at all.
Final words, for students who seeks for internship placement, please bear in mind that you need to do a study on the company that you want to place yourself. It is very important so that you can gain much knowledge that can be used on your study later on.
