Rahul, who studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Dubai, UAE, was supposed to join us this summer for the second part of his internship at ERS. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, he wasn’t able to come to Munich, but had to stay in his home city of Dubai and work remotely. We asked him to share a few insights about his experience and the pros and cons of doing a remote internship.
Last year I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Munich, Germany, and to work for ERS electronic GmbH as a Design Engineering intern. Little did I know working for ERS would be one of the best experiences I could have asked for in an internship! At the beginning of this year, I had to return to Dubai to continue my studies and it was agreed upon that I will return to ERS for another summer internship which I was excited about. Unfortunately, I couldn’t travel to Munich because of the COVID-19 situation. Thankfully, ERS agreed to let me have a remote internship instead and even send over a laptop for me to work on!
Doing a remote internship has its perks and challenges. The flexible schedule and the comfort of working from home was great. However, there were few challenges like maintaining a good line of open communication with my colleagues, the occasional technological hiccups, and the time zone differences!
Even with these challenges of doing a remote internship, ERS has been extremely supportive of my workflow and productivity.
Some of the things that I learned from this was to maintain a strict work schedule. It’s easy to overwork yourself if you split the work discontinuously throughout the day instead of working on a specific set schedule. Another thing would be to actively reach out to your colleagues and seniors as it is important to stay in the loop and adapt to the quickly changing priorities of a fast working environment. And finally, to just have fun and enjoy what you do!
Now that I am nearing the last few weeks of my summer remote internship, I would say it has been such an amazing experience!