I am Lee Jia Qi, a student at University Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) in Malaysia and I am currently in my final year of Software Engineering. In October 2022, I was given the opportunity to work with SYSTEMA for my three-month industrial training program.
There is no physical office in Malaysia and my supervisor, Mr. Hai-Sheng Tan, is from SYSTEMA Singapore. It was a very special experience as I worked remotely for the entire internship. The meetings are held virtually and all the tasks assigned for the internship were also done remotely. Since I did not have to travel to a physical office, the working hours at SYSTEMA were flexible.
However, I had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Hai-Sheng Tan during the first two days of work because he was traveling to a client site in Malaysia. I was given a clear and detailed briefing about my internship program. He shared his work experience with me and gave me a lot of guidance on my tasks.
Many of my friends who did internships in other companies were treated very unfairly. Their supervisors overworked them to take advantage of them as interns were not entitled to overtime pay. I am so grateful that Mr. Hai-Sheng Tan was my supervisor, as he was always patient and helpful when I had any problems during the internship.
I never learned about factory automation in my studies. Therefore, it was indeed a challenging task for me to learn independently and remotely. Although I enjoyed learning throughout this internship, I sometimes felt stressed, especially when I started using software which was very new to me. However, my supervisor was always patient and told me what to do.
It has been a fun and valuable experience that has helped me to improve myself in a field of knowledge that I had never known before. I look forward to going back to university and graduating with a degree in Software Engineering. This internship has fuelled my desire to work for a company like SYSTEMA in the future.