Do Internships Help in Landing Your Dream Job?

Find out how SUTD students gain an edge in the working world by securing internships to explore and learn more about themselves.

Ang You Shan

UX Design Intern (Service Design) Government Technology Agency of Singapore (GovTech)

Engineering Product Development Class of 2021

I believe that one’s career should not be defined by his or her course of study, just like how I took additional courses in UX to land myself an UX internship.

My role

As the UX Design Intern in Service Design, I played a part in directly improving the employees’ experience, and indirectly the customers’ experience, while planning and organising business’ resources. I helped in two projects – Citizen Disbursement System (CDS) and the National Platform for Healthcare Claims (NPHC).

My challenge

One of my main challenges is navigating complex projects with various systems involved. As a service designer, it was imperative for me to understand the entire end-to-end user journey, business logic and sometimes even data flow throughout the whole product and service. It was my first time dealing with a lot of policies-related information and I had to read up as well as consult my mentors to understand the entire flow.

My mentors were immensely understanding and always encouraged me to ask questions. They said, “No question is a stupid question”. Of course, on my end, I read through all the existing documentations and readings first to understand the basics and prepare a list of meaningful questions to further clarify with. However, I think the best way to learn is when you start doing small tasks, because that is when the knowledge you picked up can be applied to help the project.

My biggest takeaway

In school, we hardly have such massive projects that require one to spend a significant amount of time to fully understand the context to design the screens and product. We also do not have opportunities to present our designs to developers and product owners to gather opinions and feedback. Hence, one of the greatest takeaways from the internship would be the opportunity to work on a real client-facing project and having to work with co-workers in different job functions.

Advice for my juniors

Internship is the best time for you to try out various roles and companies that you are interested in. I believe that one’s career should not be defined by his or her course of study, just like how I took additional courses in UX to land myself in an UX internship. Be open minded, flexible, and most importantly, find a field that you are passionate about!

Austin Tay Yau Long

Data Scientist Intern DHL

Engineering Systems and Design Class of 2021

Do as many internships as you can to get a feeling of what working life is like. Through these internships, you may find something you are passionate in.

Brandon Ho

Intern DBS Bank

Engineering Systems and Design Class of 2021

There will be times where you make mistakes and cause inconvenience to others, but do not be disheartened. Learn from your mistakes, and do not hesitate to reach out for assistance.

My role

I was part of the applied analytics team in DHL as a data scientist intern. Our team’s main focus was to provide customer solutions and innovation to the team. We help external customers solve problems and also maintain good relations with them. The data scientists in the applied analytics team are often being issued several projects to work based on the clients’ demand. Customers usually engage them to provide analysis on the performance of their inventory (Deadstock) or networks (Movement), among others. The project which I was assigned to was to help the client optimise their warehouse inventory management by reducing transport and storage costs. I was tasked to focus on the part of the project which aimed to analyse the returns and the movements of the goods.

My challenge

One challenge was to adapt to the new working climate. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was not able to meet the team and work at the office. The data collection process was tedious without the face-toface interactions. It took a lot more emails and video calls to explain the requests and work through the solutions. I had to quickly adapt to using video conferencing as a main form of communication and getting used to working from home. I also had to learn several new programmes, for example Tableau, Power Bi and Pandas, to deliver the project.

My role

I was heavily involved in assisting the department in converting data into information, information into insight, and insight into business decisions. This was a three-part process: The first part was to interpret data and to analyse the results using various techniques. The second part was mostly filtering and cleaning data through reviewing computer reports, printouts, and various performance indicators. Lastly, I worked together with the management to prioritise business and information improvement opportunities.

My biggest takeaway

I had a lot of opportunities to be involved in real customer projects. My supervisor trusted and allowed me to take part in several customer meetings. In a multinational company like DHL, I was able to experience working with global colleagues with diverse background and cultures. For one of my projects, I was tasked to work with the Japan team to analyse their data. I was impressed with their work ethics and efficiency.

I am thankful to SUTD for the curriculum as I was able to apply what I have learnt in school to real-life scenarios through working on projects. The application of the knowledge has increased my mastery in this area.

I am grateful to DHL, my supervisors for their guidance and making an intern like me feel included in the DHL family with invitations to townhall meetings, team-building activities and appreciation dinner.

Advice for my juniors

Do as many internships as you can to get a feeling of what working life is like. Through these internships, you may find something you are passionate in. Be independent, proactive and have the learning agility to

face any challenge.

My challenge

One of the biggest challenges I faced was the lack of technical knowledge. It did not come as a surprise, considering that it was my first time working in a bank. However, my lack of technical knowledge was quite restrictive, limiting the scope of tasks that I perform.

To help resolve this, I participated in weekly Market Updates hosted by DBS, which gave me clearer insights and knowledge to the current financial situation in Singapore, as well as globally. I also took up online courses in my free time to help bridge this gap in knowledge.

James Gan Sheng Wei

Data Science Intern DataSpark

Engineering Systems and Design Class of 2021

Throughout the internship journey, there may be instances where do not have the knowledge yet to carry out a task. When that happens, have the courage to ask your fellow colleagues for help.

Lin Huiqing

Softwear Engineer Intern Carousell My biggest takeaway

My biggest takeaway from the internship would be the soft skills that I observed and experienced. Being able to experience first-hand how the employees in the department of a world-class bank work together was really inspiring, and it also gave me a pretty good idea of the kind of career that I would want to pursue after I graduate from SUTD. The internship also gave me the opportunity to work together with international

My role

I came into DataSpark as a Data Science Intern. I was very thankful to be given the opportunity to rotate around three teams during my internship stint. For the first rotation, I worked on a component of the CAPEX optimiser decision engine to identify high value customer segment. This rotation broadened my understanding of the world of data, as I was exposed to the software engineering side of data science, where we create tools that allow for statistical insights. My next rotation was working with Product Management Team where I helped to generate figures and values that were needed by the team for validation and presentation purposes. And finally, during my last rotation, I was attached to the Machine Learning Team, where I worked on the development of an Outlier Detection Algorithm to improve the quality of data ingested by the ML algorithms.

My challenge

The biggest challenge for me was picking up technical skills and domain-specific knowledge (telecommunications lingo). DataSpark utilised Spark and Scala to perform their task due to the sheer volume of data that is being consumed.

My role

I was a Software Engineer Intern in the Quality Team, which is mostly focused on testing, monitoring, reviewing and learning. During my internship, I was mostly working on a project to set up a service to select dynamic test sets for test automation at every Pull Request.

My challenge

One of the challenges I have encountered in the internship was the use of unfamiliar tools. This has led to quite some trouble to get things working, sometimes only to find out that I was unable to perform the tasks due to the lack of permissions. To overcome this, I constantly reminded stakeholders even though I was just an intern, which was an incredibly satisfying and rewarding experience.

Advice for my juniors

At the end of the day, an internship is a learning experience. There will be times where you make mistakes and cause inconvenience to others, but do not be disheartened. Learn from your mistakes, and do not hesitate to reach out for

assistance. Wish you all the best! The programming language Scala was completely new to me, as previously during my ESD and project times, I was more familiar with dynamically typed language and had to get familiar with statically types language. Coursera, YouTube and Udemy was one of the best resources I had to allow myself to pick up the Apache family of software and Scala Programming Language.

In addition, the telecommunications industry was new to me, and it took me some time to be familiar with the terminology and the processes that were involved, as it influenced my analysis and conclusions of my work.

My biggest takeaway

Accept that you will need to learn new skills.

Advice for my juniors

Throughout the internship journey, there may be instances where you may not yet have the technical knowledge to carry out a task. When that happens, have the courage to ask your fellow colleagues for help. Most of the time, they will be more than happy to lend a helping hand and

teach you. myself not to dwell on certain problems. After reading the documentation, I test the hypotheses and if still uncertain, to ask others. I have also set a limit of one day to figure out things which I am unsure of before moving on.

Another challenge was ensuring the maintainability of the code, as it was the first time I was working on a project which would go into production. To tackle this, I made sure to practise good coding practices, and think about maintainability early on when designing the code and use design patterns if applicable.

Information Systems Technology and Design Class of 2022

To make the most out of your internship, take the initiative to go the extra mile to suggest improvements in existing processes or learn more about what is going on in the team or company!

Sandy Low Yu Xian

Intern Changi General Hospital

Architecture and Sustainable Design Class of 2021

Design thinking is one of the keys where I do not possess the knowledge effective urban planning. This is very relevant to my interest and what was taught in ASD.

My biggest takeaway

My biggest takeaway was the whole experience of being in a software engineering team. Through this experience, I had the opportunity to put the best practices learnt in class into practice, to experience what being AGILE really means, and to use automation tools which would only make sense in a large-scale or long-term project. These are opportunities which cannot be fully

My role

I had the opportunity to work with Changi General Hospital’s (CGH) Community Development Office to conceptualise, research, and design how community spaces can be optimised to promote physical activity. One of the highlights of my 16-week internship at CGH is the opportunity to network and work together with many healthcare professionals and community organisations. I have also learnt from the SUTD Social Urban Research Groupe (SURGe) how architects collect data of their target population. I have managed to develop an online survey to understand the spaces that Tampines Residents use and partner with the Northeast Community Development Council to reach out to almost 200 residents. I then organised and led an on-site mixed-method survey involving almost 60 residents, which was well received.

My challenge

The Healthcare sector during this pandemic has been put through immense stress. I am grateful that the internship with CGH is still possible despite their tight resources as CGH has been SUTD’s supportive industry partner.

Working from home was a challenge for me at the beginning of the internship. Throughout the internship, I have been working remotely from home, attending e-meetings and connecting with my replicated in school or would only make sense in larger projects.

Advice for my juniors

Be proactive. While it is your supervisor’s responsibility to grow you as an intern, they often have many other things on their plate as well. To make the most out of your internship, take the initiative to go the extra mile to suggest improvements in existing processes or learn more about

what is going on in the team or company! colleagues through digital means. During the start of the internship, I was unaware of who I could reach out to for help and was confused on how the internship was going to progress.

However, with the warm hospitality of CGH, I was aware of whom I could reach out to consult for my work. Senior researchers from SURGe were also open and never hesitated to offer me feedback for my work. This reassured me and I was able to fully adapt to working from home.

My biggest takeaway

With new knowledge and insights gained through my internship, I discovered how architecture and the opinions of users play a critical role in urban planning. Design thinking is one of the keys to effective urban planning. This is very relevant to my interest and what was taught in ASD. Taking a design thinking approach correct in our unique curriculum allows us to understand the needs of those we are building for.

Advice for my juniors

An internship opportunity is a great time to apply what the curriculum has taught us and apply in real-world situations. Keep an open mind to new perspectives in your field and you might gain new perspectives through your internship journey.

Tan Yong Da Dino

Data Engineer Intern Unilever

Engineering Systems and Design Class of 2021

This period of internship is invaluable in understanding your own working style and ideal work environment.

Goh Yi Lin Tiffany

Software Engineering Intern Ministry of Home Affairs

Information Systems Technology and Design

Class of 2021

My role

I was a Data Engineer Intern at Unilever’s Information & Analytics Department (I&A). My work was focused on the development of a Trade Promotion Analytics (TPA) platform, a data-driven interactive dashboard that allows clients to analyse the performance of their products and promotions across retailer stores, enabling them to adopt a targeted approach in their sales decisions.

As a data engineer, my main role within this TPA Project is to process and transform primary consumer data according to their business’ key performance indicators (KPIs), such as Return on Investment, Market Share, Promotion Uplift, among others, before handing the data over to the business analysts for dashboard development. Given the large scale of the datasets, I had the opportunity to work with Big Data within an Azure environment and its various applications.

My challenge

The TPA project is driven by a great deal of business considerations. As I had little experience in business-driven data projects prior to this internship, the main challenge I faced was in effectively integrating financial metrics and KPIs in my codes and presentations. It was not an easy process to familiarise myself with multitudes of sales benchmarking metrics within the span of weeks. Thankfully, under the mentorship of my manager and colleagues, I was given the

My role

I worked as a software engineering intern at the Ministry of Home Affairs. Along with three interns including myself, we created an automatic text summariser. It summarises text documents and outputs informative visualisation displays that quickly and easily communicate the content of the text to the users.

It was a very enriching exposure, where we experienced the entire software engineering process. I started off researching and building natural language processing models that could detect sentiments, topics within documents and cluster similar documents together. Subsequently, I moved on to optimising the software architecture, enabling parallel processing, auto scaling and load balancing. right guidance and direction to cultivate a better business acumen as a data engineer.

Another challenge I faced was in the aspect of client management. While my main role was that of a data engineer, another key role of my internship was liaising with TPA’s foreign clients. As I progressed with the data management, I had to continually deliver data feedbacks and rectify data quality issues. On occasions where there were pushbacks or new requests on project deliverables from the clients, I had to exercise my discretion to ensure that the project’s outcome would not be compromised.

My biggest takeaway

Through my work at I&A, I have learnt about the workflow systems in the FMCG industry and its business analytics applications. Working remotely spurred me to be more independent and proactive in my learning. I have also witnessed how crucial teamwork and communication is to ensure a project’s success. Overall, this internship at Unilever has helped me grow to be a more task-oriented and effective data engineer, and I am grateful for the experience.

Advice for my juniors

Do your best and maintain a positive

attitude when the going gets tough!

My challenge

My main challenge was coping with the steep learning curve within a short time. For NLP and deep learning concepts, I learnt to sieve through multiple online resources and grasp key and relevant concepts. As for Dockers and OpenShift, other than self-studying main concepts after work, I shifted my working style from fully understanding concepts before implementation to concurrent testing and understanding. In addition, I am very fortunate to have teammates who were very willing to answer my queries and lend me a helping hand whenever I faced difficulties.

Be hungry, grab any learning opportunities available and be open-minded to learn new things or accept new tasks.

Wong Jing Yi

Intern Amaris AI

Engineering Systems and Design Class of 2021

I would not have been able to learn so much from this internship experience had I stayed within the comfort and confines of my existing knowledge.

My biggest takeaway

Before my internship, I was excited at the thought of being able to explore many state-of-the-art technologies. However, afterwards, I realised that the soft skills learnt during the internship is equally, if not more, important to the technical skills as soft skills ingrained in ourselves will help us in our career long term. In terms of problem solving, I have become more systematic and logical in my thought process and approach. I learnt to place more emphasis in understanding the root cause of the problem. For complex tasks, I would tear the tasks apart, break them into smaller blocks and prioritise them for effective analysis. Lastly, I learnt to fully leverage on the internship opportunity as a learning platform to

My role

During my time in Amaris AI, my role was focused on cybersecurity. There were two big projects I spent most of my time on – the data diode project, and the CovidGuard project.

The data diode was a simple way to physically implement one-way data transfers between computers. I did various tests and improved on the code for the data diode project. Since it was implemented in an idle situation, it was important to occasionally send and receive a pulse to ensure the functionality of the diode.

The CovidGuard project was a system that could use image recognition to check the SafeEntry “Check In” screen, and even use NFC cards. Since this involved storing users’ NRIC numbers, it was highly confidential and we had to ensure that no data could be accessed via the client-facing side of our system. Thus, I worked with some colleagues to carry out penetration testing on our own system to ensure that it was safe from malicious users.

My challenge

As an ESD student, I was daunted when placed in a cybersecurity role. I went into a lot of the tasks with hardly any prior understanding of the subject and had to do my own research to catch up. Thankfully, I had nice colleagues who were trials and take calculated risks for new ideas.

Advice for my juniors

For new interns, my advice to them is not to overly focus on the deliverables or project outcomes, and end up neglecting the learning process. Do not fear making mistakes as internship is a safe environment for trial and error, and trying new ideas and making assumptions. Be hungry, grab any learning opportunities available and be open-minded to learn new things or accept new tasks. Voice your opinions during discussions and be receptive to feedback. Have the passion and drive to continuously learn and enrich yourself.

Make full use of your internship! patient and willing to help me through my hurdles, and a good supervisor with a wealth of knowledge who could point me in the correct direction. I would not have been able to learn so much from this internship experience had I stayed within the comfort and confines of my existing knowledge.

My biggest takeaway

During my experience here, I was once scolded by my supervisor for mentioning incorrect information about cybersecurity. I believe this was due to a breakdown in communication. I did not fully understand the intentions of my supervisor and did not dare to clarify with him. From this experience, I learnt that communication was important, and not to be mentally affected by such situations. After the situation, we clarified things and I still ended the internship off on good terms with my supervisor.

Advice for my juniors

Do not be discouraged if you did not get into your desired company! There are many places that can give you a wealth of learning experiences.