By Ikha
Hello from my lovely small city Offenburg, Germany! It's been three weeks since my internship ended. Now, I'm facing reality as a student again at Offenburg University of Applied Sciences. In this post, I’d like to share you about the lessons learned and best moments during the internship, including tips for those who are interested to do an internship at Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions Poland S.A.
Doing an internship goes deeper than gaining work experience and adding a few rows on your CV. It's all about what you've learned and how it impacts your life and shapes your future. Personally, I consider this internship an enriching phase in my life where I opened up to a new environment and developed my technical and soft skills.
There are two important lessons I learned during this internship. First, don’t stop looking for inspiration around you. An intern is never isolated from colleagues. There will be at least one moment in which we have the opportunity to interact with our supervisor and co-workers. This interaction was very important for me because through it I found inspiration from everyone who worked with me.
“An intern is never isolated from colleagues, and you can find inspiration in the interaction with them”
For example, my supervisor who has extensive knowledge in the field of engineering design made time to meet and discuss with everyone who had questions about the project we worked on. He listens and appreciates the opinions of others, and was very solution-oriented when problems popped-up in our project. I also found inspiration in my colleagues, who where very open minded, communicative, cooperative, and helpful. Those inspirations encouraged me to perform at my best, helping me to be more confident and unafraid to ask or interact with my colleagues and supervisors. It surely made the internship days at Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions Poland S.A more fun!
“One must learn to be flexible and adapt to unforeseen problems in a project, while still delivering agreed quality and specifications of a product.”
The second lesson I learned is how important it is to be a flexible engineer. Sometimes, during project execution, you're not aware that certain problems that might occur until they suddenly arise and require an immediate solution. Therefore, one must learn as an engineer to be flexible, for example, towards fixed project specifications or parameters in engineering calculation. This flexibility should allow you to adapt and still guarantee the agreed quality and specifications of the product.
Leave room for the unexpected
It will be difficult to think about this internship and find a memory that is not beautiful. This time was amazing and will always be on my mind. But something I'm especially happy about is that through this internship I had the opportunity to have a meeting with the Chairman of Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions Poland S.A. I shared with him my opinion and feedback about the internship program, and it surprised me that not only was he listening but also writing down my feedback on his book. As an intern in a such big and global company, this is a kind of rare and precious moment.
Besides the Chairman, the director of the department and the Talent Management and Organization Development Manager from the HR Department were also open to my feedback. It gave me a very good impression about the company, that they really value everyone.
Other memories I'll always carry in my life are the moments where me and my colleagues exchanged our knowledge to accomplish tasks, and the unforgettable lunch moments with lunch mates who were always generous sharing their delicious food with me!
“I felt that, at Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions Poland S.A., everyone is valued”
In my opinion, Air Liquide Global Solutions E&C Poland S.A. is the right company for those looking for deep learning, because as an intern you'll be deeply involved in a certain project or projects. You'll be placed with knowledgeable, experienced, and engaged professionals within your field who'll supervise you, and maybe, like me, you'll learn unexpected things (besides the project-related tasks, I also participated in a very interesting in-house training).
Thank you, team!
Make it happen
If you're interested in doing an internship at Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions Poland S.A., I recommend you to be proactive in doing your tasks. Use that proactive attitude to show that you're consistent with your internship goals. My goals were to learn and gain as much experience as possible in that short time, so that I would be ready to develop my career. So I made sure to keep that in mind as I worked. You can put this into action by taking the initiative to ask for your next task as soon as you accomplish the previous one assigned to you. This way you make sure not to waste your time doing nothing.
Another tip I'd like to give you is to overcome your fear and always be positive. Keep in mind there are no stupid questions! Sometimes, as interns we're reluctant to ask or interact with colleagues because we're unnecessarily scared. We shouldn't wait for our co-workers to talk with us, because we can initiate the conversation anytime as well. The more you interact with your co-workers, the more confident you'll be at networking (and the wider your network!). Trust me, it will help you a lot!
Last but not least, I wish you success in your application!
-Ikha