Bachelor of Commerce/Advanced Studies student and Local Industry Placement Program (Local IPP) Scholarship recipient Patrick Nguyen shares his experience of the program.
Why I chose to do the Local IPP and how I got involved
The Local IPP reflected an amazing opportunity for me to extrapolate beyond fundamental university courseworks by providing an elective unit for part-time internship work within realistic business environments.
Having discovered the unit through the University of Sydney Business School’s Local Industry Placement Program Scholarship, I found major solace and gratitude in the University’s willingness to support students by eliminating pertinent boundaries and encouraging talent to thrive with confidence.
As such, the rare opportunity to be supported by the university while also undertaking an internship with full-time study meant that I was able to focus on diversifying my skills and maximising my time within the industry. While progressing through the application, interview and focus group sessions, I believe I garnered important experiences into the real-world recruitment process and its competitiveness.
My Experience with the Local IPP
During my Local IPP, I was fortunate enough to be matched with Nestle Australia, working as a brand management intern for MAGGI ANZ and Harvest Gourmet.
During my ten week tenure, I was able to explore the opportunity of physically and virtually working within interdepartmental team settings who, despite having different areas of specialisations and delegations, remained consistent and collective in their strive for success.
While the duties were challenging, they were definitely rewarding and provided a major sense of achievement and pride in building my skills and knowledge of the industry upon the completion of the program.
Key Opportunities & Challenges
Through the Local IPP, I was genuinely surprised by the immense amount of freedom I was given to spearhead degree-relevant projects which allowed me to feel that the work I was doing made a real impact on the business. In doing so, I gained more independence, experience and critical thinking for problem solving scenarios which have influenced the work I do at university and my attitude to day-to-day work. I was also able to work within teams of those with different career pathways, different expertise and different experiences which allowed me to gain an understanding of multiple perspectives. This provided a great platform to witness first-hand the work of other fields and allowed me to see what I possibly may like to explore later in the future. Finally, the Local IPP gave me an outstanding capacity to connect to a web of experienced networks which may help in exploring a future NextGen Graduate position at Nestle Australia.
While the Local IPP is a well-designed part-time program for full-time students, it proved a challenging task initially to balance the workload between a busy university schedule and trying to adapt to workplace settings. To overcome this, it was important to communicate these concerns with my Local IPP supervisor at Nestle and at the university who were extremely understanding of the situation and helped to accommodate for the concern and worked to make a solution. On my end, I also solved this situation more by planning my assignments and Local IPP schedules through a calendar to better visualise what was forthcoming and its importance.
Future advice for Local IPP applicants
If you are commencing or already doing the program, I highly recommend coming into the program with an open mind and being willing to step outside your comfort zone and experience different fields; the opportunity to try different fields is hard to come by so don’t feel stuck with your majors.
No comments:
Post a Comment