How to ACE your internship when English isn’t your first language

Doing a job interview in another language, adapting to a workplace in a new country with a new culture is a big challenge for every international student. However, doing an internship during your study can absolutely improve your resume and increase your chance to adapt to the workplace.

My name is Maryam, and I am studying a master of IT/IS Management. Last semester I enrolled in the Industry Mentor Program and completed my internship at the Gold Coast Primary Health Network. My role was mainly working on their CRM project and their database. It was a wonderful experience working in an Australian company and I have learnt a lot from my experienced industry supervisor and academic supervisor. I am really pleased to share my internship experience with you.

For doing an internship during your study, there are 3 programs in Griffith University that you can apply for;

• Community Internship
• Industry Affiliates Program
• Industry Mentor Program

I applied through the Industry Affiliates Program (IAP) and I wanted to share my experience with you here.

The Industry Affiliates Program

Besides doing theory study at university, it is essential to have some practical experience such as doing a project in a real life workplace. The IAP provides an opportunity for students to experience working on a real project in a real workplace. In IAP, you have one academic supervisor and one industry supervisor. Your academic supervisor is a person who assists you in writing your academic report about your project and your industry supervisor is the person who gives you a project and helps you do your project in the workplace.

How to apply

To apply to this program, you just need to enrol in this course as usual and the same as others. Once you have registered, you will receive a list of projects that relate to your major and you can choose and apply for any of them which you find interesting. You send your resume to the IAP office and they send your resume to the industry partner which you applied for. They will review your resume and if they think you will be suitable for their Project, they may call you for an interview.

The interview!

Generally, a job interview is challenging and people try their best to overcome it and get their desired job. In addition, for international students doing a job interview in another country in a different language could be an issue. For the IAP, you need to do an interview with your industry supervisor. My advice is to dress well with a business style and just be calm and feel confident about yourself during the interview and be prepared to talk about your resume in detail. After doing your interview and if you do it well and they accept you, you can start your internship 🙂

Advantages of an internship

I remember that my academic supervisor mentioned that when companies want to hire someone, having technical knowledge is highly ranked, however they mostly pay attention to the communication skills of that person.

This is a great chance for students to experience working in a real workplace and not only improve their technical knowledge but also improve their communication and team work skills. From my point of view, the main advantage of this program or any internship program is that we can improve our communication skills in a workplace, how to communicate, how to work within a team, how to overcome work problems and how to improve our tolerance and patience in the workplace.

Also I must mention that improving time management skills is another great benefit of doing an internship. You learn how to plan the project and meet deadlines. Finally, I can say that it is the best way to prepare yourself for the workplace.

– Maryam