Internship Assignment

In a 4 – 6 page paper based on your internship course experience and the learning objectives achieved during the course, review your internship experience successes and challenges leading to growth. You should demonstrate in your paper a description of your professional portfolio and include any evidence of accomplishment and skill development or recognition that you have acquired this session and how it will contribute to your portfolio.

Provide at least two (2) peer-reviewed sources. If you have completed this CLA2 assignment in an internship course prior to this class, select new examples and sources to support your response.

Include the following Class Learning Objectives (CLOs) in your response:

CLO 1: Explore various career possibilities.

CLO 2: Combine classroom knowledge with an opportunity to learn those disciplines, skills and attitudes which can best be learned on the job; such as: self-discipline, teamwork, responsibility, and initiative.

CLO 3: Develop practical skills in a real-world context

CLO 4: Enhance a portfolio or resume with practical experience and projects.

CLO 5: Cultivate a learning experience, which can lead to job opportunities within the workforce.

Running head: Comprehensive Learning Assessment 1 1

Comprehensive Learning Assessment 1 2

Comprehensive Learning Assessment 1

Akshat Agrawal

Westcliff University

INT 701 E/F 4: Internship

Professor Julia Sherm

October 23rd, 2020

Comprehensive Learning Assessment 1

My internship at Meridian Rapid Defense Group Company was a great opportunity to apply course concepts covered in class in a work environment and advance my professional skills and competencies. Under my assigned supervisor’s supervision, I acquired various skills and experiences that would have furthered my career.

I gained some of the technical skills throughout my internship period, including designing, implementing, and repairing security software and other equipment and technologies. Even though engineering knowledge acquired in the classroom was adequate to enable me to accomplish my duties, it was difficult to apply this knowledge to the real-world environment due to differences in procures and processes involved in the workplace. However, the knowledge gained in class was essential in giving me some footing. With the guidance and support of my assigned supervision, I was able to master these technical skills and increase my confidence in designing, implementing, using, and repairing security software and other technologies. These technical skills acquired will enable me to excel in my future workplace.

Teamwork was one of the important skills learned in the course of my internship. I had the chance to work with teams comprise of interns and professional engineers. I learned the various team dynamics, including trust, respect, conflicts, commitment, accountability, shared purpose, and collaboration. Some of the teamwork skills I acquired include communication skills, collaboration, emotional intelligence, and effective conflict management. These skills, as Alshehri (2019) points out, are important in enabling an individual to work with other people in a team. These acquired teamwork skills will be helpful for me in the future while working in teams.

I have cultivated my cultural competence throughout my internship period. During my course, I have been able to interact with students from various cultural backgrounds, and this has enabled me to appreciate and improve my attitude towards cultural differences. This was further reinforced throughout my time at Meridian Rapid Defense Group Company since I was able to relate and interact with employees from diverse cultures. Lamb, Maire, and Doecke (2017) emphasize the importance of cultural competence to communicate and interact effectively with team members of diverse cultures. The workplace is increasingly becoming culturally diverse, and thus, cultural competence skills gained during my internship will help me work with people of diverse cultures in the future. Additionally, these skills will be vital to my relations with other people, even at a personal level.

In any work environment, leadership skills are important. Throughout my internship period, I grew in my leadership through interactions with my supervision, who exhibited exceptional leadership and observations. In particular, I understood the concept of transformational leadership and application. What I observed and understood about transformation leadership is in line with Jiang, Zhao, and Ni (2017), noting that it is a leadership approach employing intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, individualized consideration, and idealized influence to empower and motivate employees. Through observations and interactions with my supervisor and other leaders in the company, I appreciated the importance of supporting and guiding employees to help them develop their competencies, challenging them to achieve beyond their potential, giving them opportunities to develop themselves, and modeling the desired behavior, “walking the talk”. This has made me rethink my career goals. I have redefined my career goals, adding the goal of assuming leadership positions in the future. In this way, I will be able to shape my future workplace in a way that creates a positive work environment and where employees are always motivated to achieve the best.

However, I learned that I have an issue with anger management. Throughout my internship period, I noticed that I tend to raise my voice in anger when there is a trigger, such as work not done to expectation. I also found myself engaging in heated arguments when ideas differed. This was determinantal to my relationship with other team members. However, I was able to recognize this and apologize to team members with whom I raised my voice and engaged in heated arguments. This was helpful in repairing my relationship with them and work as a team. In this regard, I am encouraged and motivated to take personal initiative to learn and acquire anger management skills. This will be important not only in my professional life but also in my personal life. It will help me deal with stressful situations in a team in a respectful manner, which will be important in fostering positive relationships with team members. As such, my current goal is to learn anger management skills.

Based on the skills and experiences during my internship period, I redefined my career goals. I would want to be a Security Analyst and later on an Engineering manager. As a security analyst, I would be engaged in planning, implementing, and monitoring security initiatives and programs. I would be involved in assessing possible threats, identification of vulnerabilities in a system, initiating risk mitigation strategies, and applying security risk management software. An engineering manager is a leadership position. As such, I am motivated to continue with my professional education that would ensure I stay at the forefront of developments and trends in my career, which would enable me to achieve the goal of becoming an engineering manager.

In conclusion, my internship at Meridian Rapid Defense Group Company has been insightful and made me rethink my career goals. I have redefined my career goals, and I am determined and motivated to work towards achieving these goals.

References

Alshehri, A. A. (2019). Augmenting engineering undergraduates’ generic competencies aligned with ABET outcomes 3 and 5. Global Journal of Engineering Education, 21(3), 171-179.

Jiang, W., Zhao, X., & Ni, J. (2017). The impact of transformational leadership on employee sustainable performance: The mediating role of organizational citizenship behavior. Sustainability, 9(9), 1567-1584.

Lamb, S., Maire, Q., & Doecke, E. (2017). Key Skills for the 21st Century: an evidence-based review. Center for International Research on Education Systems, 1-71.