Hello readers!
The month September 2017 came at an end last week and I have had the first month of full worktime-experience, in regarding to an internship, of my life. And beside the internship and the required studying, I also managed to do lots of little social things with my family and friends.
September 2017
The World Harbour Days of Rotterdam are also traditionally at the beginning of September and it is really lovely to visit different ships by day and watch a music performance – accompanied by fireworks from a pontoon at the water – by night. That evening I photographed the Erasmusbridge covered in blue lights.
The day after the World Harbour Days 2017, I was a nice day spending at the Airborne Museum ‘Hartenstein’ in Oosterbeek, Gelderland, The Netherlands. A lovely day with a whole sidepart of my family. The Airborne museum is mostly about ‘The Battle of Arnhem’ in the World War II. And it is an interesting part of history of the World War II I did not know about. You learn about the history, you learn about how things are organised nowadays, you can even experience how it slightly felt being at a battle field. And that experience is also suited for the children (age 8+ or 10+ I would recommend) but even I got a bit thrilled once. Brrr but that means it gives you a real slightly feeling about that time.
In short about my social life: September was the month of the birthdays of several good friends, a graduation party of another good friend and walking a day through the zoo again. Having drinks and socializing in the city center, visiting a book-fair or discovering places and travel routes in The Netherlands and just doing lots of different little things. The month did go by quickly and a saying is: “Time flies when you are having fun!”.
The internship
I prepared for the internship by reading into several subjects of IT stuff. Languages, frameworks, trial and error with setting up an environment on a dual booted laptop and so on. I shall not write a lot about the exact things I am searching, analyzing, implementing or concluding of my internship subject. But now and then I can share some general tricks I have discovered and learned throughout the weeks.
At the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences where I am studying, they say that an internship for ~20 weeks of fulltime work is gonna be really tough. What they say is not completely right nor completely wrong. At the internship you are supposed to learn a lot and work in a new environment. Learn how it all works at a real business. See how the business and its people flows. And the internship itself comprises a goal where you work towards too in those 20 weeks and where you want to succeed in. The goal of my internship, and therefore also my subject, is designing a CRM system. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management system and contains the way a business with its own platform software, can respond to errors users could experience. The errors are not unsolvable, but the business has to know in an as fast and easy as possible way: which error at who occurred, when it occurred and how to solve it for the user in an as quick as possible and customer serving way.
For example: I go to Instagram and want to upload a photo. The photo won’t upload.
A perspective could be: Maybe I was trying to upload a GIF (you know those moving little images in a funny way) instead of a photo format (.jpeg/.png etc). Without a CRM system, I have to mail to Instagram about the error, or let it be. Both options are not funny, time consuming and I don’t know in such a situation who really to contact. To whom I refer? Who can help me? Can this problem be solved?
Another perspective could be: The error is at Instagram, maybe (a port of) a server was down and no upload was possible.
The CRM system would tackle such a problem and help me immediately by sending a notification (could be a message on my screen or an email), about that they noticed the problem and maybe it is accompanied by how to solve it; if it was my mistake or theirs does not really matter; a problem needs to be solved. If I follow the steps how to solve it, it is solved. Everybody happy, quick way, no back and forth email with tough descriptions about the error and so on…just a real customer service.
So this is in general what I am learning about, working towards to and what I hope to achieve in general after my internship ends. A basic – with expanding options – working CRM system custom build for the company. My days are with a full working scheme ánd still studying on Mondays and partly in the weekends as a fulltime student, quite busy. On a weekly basis I am kind of combining a few of these things or combining them all together: Internship, studying, reading a book – articles – magazines – blogs – newspapers and websites, trying a recipe, watching a film or series or travel and experience in life and also spending lovely time with my family and friends. And I feel so good, healthy, full of energy and happy about all the lovely things. Feeling a little bit proud as well how to schedule everything and how to manage it up to so far. Sometimes a little bit of stress but it is the good amount of stress and not on a daily basis. It is the amount that makes you a little bit nervous for a presentation or a meeting, but keeps you sharp and on fire all the time. Of course I am really tired after such a day, but that’s life.
Blogging takes time and I love to blog, I will not stop blogging during my internship – for if you were wondering. It is just not fitted as a regular basis yet into my big busy schedule. The first part is experiencing and learning things in my life. Even if you read a book or watch a film, find the general message or just watch but remember what your thoughts are about it all. Because the second part is blogging about it. And I blog in a way that I write nearly as close as I tell someone about it. So the general and therefore challenging question for the second part – which is blogging – is: How to tell / write about what you experienced, learned or thought? The question if I would recommend something to someone else is even part three. It is beyond basic because at that moment when I am writing such a paragraph, I place myself in someone else’s shoes; trying to see it from another perspective. And I like positive things, so trying to see it from a person’s perspective who would really happy with it.
How is or was or will be, your experience of an internship?
Greetings by Sophie
Schitterende foto van ‘Erasmus’!!!
Elsa x