There are a few things I’ve had to learn during my internship that no class or textbook could have realistically prepared me for. First and foremost, I had to learn how to ask good questions. I’m a short and to the point type of person, so asking questions with enough background/context to get a good answer has been something I’ve had to learn. In a similar vein, I’ve had to learn how to politely ask for more clarity if I feel that my question wasn’t answered with enough detail as I had hoped. That’s not to say that people give bad answers, but that they perhaps misunderstood my question or that maybe I didn’t phrase it the right way. Second, I’ve had to learn how to confidently lead meetings and drive the conversation in a meaningful direction. Something that I’ve struggled with in the past is that when the spotlight is on me as the speaker/facilitator, my brain freezes up and I can’t articulate my thoughts properly. Practicing leading meetings has helped me tremendously with this struggle, and my public speaking skills are much better off for it. Overall, these soft skills that I’ve picked up during my internship have made me a better person both personally and professionally, and I’m very grateful for the experience.
I was able to enhance my soft skills while working at the internship that I could not have been able to do in the classroom. The best skill I learned was leading a meeting and very concisely staying on the agenda. To add on to that, I got in the habit of taking notes in the form of agenda, meeting notes, and action items. I’m grateful to my manager, who connected me to network within the company and get an exposure of different departments as well as speak with executives in the C-suite. One of the most interesting conversations I had was with an information security analyst at the bank. He talked about his college internship experience as a security analyst and the basic certifications required in the Information Security world. Furthermore, he gave a in-depth understanding of the department and emphasized on certain techniques they use to protect the financial institution. I met with his team and learned about the primary tools used by them in real-time to provide instant detection and incident response, maintain firewalls and data encryption programs, use the existing threats faced by other financial institutions to recognize patterns within their network, I have a strong inclination to cybersecurity and I gained real industry level knowledge and application, which will support my 4+1 Cybersecurity courses in the near future.
There are a few things I’ve had to learn during my internship that no class or textbook could have realistically prepared me for. First and foremost, I had to learn how to ask good questions. I’m a short and to the point type of person, so asking questions with enough background/context to get a good answer has been something I’ve had to learn. In a similar vein, I’ve had to learn how to politely ask for more clarity if I feel that my question wasn’t answered with enough detail as I had hoped. That’s not to say that people give bad answers, but that they perhaps misunderstood my question or that maybe I didn’t phrase it the right way. Second, I’ve had to learn how to confidently lead meetings and drive the conversation in a meaningful direction. Something that I’ve struggled with in the past is that when the spotlight is on me as the speaker/facilitator, my brain freezes up and I can’t articulate my thoughts properly. Practicing leading meetings has helped me tremendously with this struggle, and my public speaking skills are much better off for it. Overall, these soft skills that I’ve picked up during my internship have made me a better person both personally and professionally, and I’m very grateful for the experience.
I was able to enhance my soft skills while working at the internship that I could not have been able to do in the classroom. The best skill I learned was leading a meeting and very concisely staying on the agenda. To add on to that, I got in the habit of taking notes in the form of agenda, meeting notes, and action items. I’m grateful to my manager, who connected me to network within the company and get an exposure of different departments as well as speak with executives in the C-suite. One of the most interesting conversations I had was with an information security analyst at the bank. He talked about his college internship experience as a security analyst and the basic certifications required in the Information Security world. Furthermore, he gave a in-depth understanding of the department and emphasized on certain techniques they use to protect the financial institution. I met with his team and learned about the primary tools used by them in real-time to provide instant detection and incident response, maintain firewalls and data encryption programs, use the existing threats faced by other financial institutions to recognize patterns within their network, I have a strong inclination to cybersecurity and I gained real industry level knowledge and application, which will support my 4+1 Cybersecurity courses in the near future.