Hello everyone! This is the second week of my summer internship. I am so excited to begin the work with YOU.
First, I want to talk about the preparation before the summer internship. We had five orientation workshops over the last few months. One of these workshops was an in person meeting. It’s a great opportunity to meet new people and become familiar with your work partners. In these workshops, we discussed the important things we learned from the required modules. The most important thing I learned was self-reflection. We need to always ask ourselves if the language and actions have any problems before doing anything. When we work under a different cultural background from our own culture, it’s important to respect the local culture. We cannot say anything including negative and discriminatory words or content.
Next, we had two very interesting Swahili lessons this and last week. I learned how to introduce myself to peers and older people. I learned numbers and asked how much things are. We also had very simple conversations by Swahili. I thought that the lessons were very interesting and useful.
Speaking of the experience within the two weeks, I noticed that communication is very important. There are two challenges for me at this period. First one is time management, because I have one summer course, and I need to balance the time between study and work. The problem was that I could not find a suitable time to have a weekly meeting with other interns, because of my summer course. After I discussed the time with my supervisor by email, I found out that I could join the meeting on the other day. Second, I was so confused about what tasks I can start with. However, after meeting with the community partner, and I asked their priorities, I felt much clearer now. The manager clearly told me what they wanted and what I could do. Thus, the next steps for me are working on the recipe’s nutritional analysis and helping with making yogurt for YOU.
There two tips for you:
-Always asking questions
-Communicate
Zhihui Xiao - Western Heads East 