Undergraduate internship experiences

Our SIS students share their internship experiences…

	“With project management being my primary responsibility, I have the opportunity to appreciate the functions of various business units in the nature of my job scope through a series of meaningful interactions. This allows me to understand the big picture of banking in general.” YANG Kangwei, Batch 2006, Second Major in Finance ABN AMRO Bank N.V.
	“An increasing trend towards online shopping has propelled the company's reliance on IT innovation to drive revenue growths. I am doing an in depth study and documentation of the logic that drives their Retail and e-Business model, and how to incorporate agility in expanding their scope of the business. Nothing beats being at the forefront of an exciting project change management. ” XIE Shunping, Batch 2006, Second Major in Finance Singapore Post
	“SIS has allowed me to ACCENT on the futURE. Managing project for a major bank has never been as fun and filled with learning. Through various interactions with clients and senior management, I have the opportunity to understand banking and consulting hand in hand. This experience at Accenture can't be better for me!” DEERAJ Jagdish Karnani, Batch 2005, Second Major in Finance Accenture
	“I get new and exciting learning opportunities everyday, working and collaborating with training providers, clients, and employers in the Media and Digital Media sector in our effort to understand Singapore 's industry manpower needs. ” Gerald TAN Ziping, Batch 2005, Second Major in Management Workforce Development Agency (WDA)
	“I have the opportunity to evaluate and develop an intranet for the Audit Department, and also explore essential software solutions used by the department.” LIM Dehua, Jason, Batch 2006, Second Major in Accounting Singapore Airlines
	“For my internship, I have a great opportunity to work with the people behind the region's leading mobile trading system. It has definitely provided me a wider perspective to the financial and most importantly, the technical side of a banking industry.” SEAH Yulin, Batch 2006, Second Major in Finance OCBC Securities
	“The domain knowledge I am acquiring in the Casino Gaming Industry is scarce and niche in the IT industry. It's definitely an eye-opener to be part of the team, working on a project of this size and capacity, needless to mention a Casino Management System.”   CHEN Changcai, Alex, Batch 2006, Second Major in Marketing Resort World Sentosa (RWS)

More testimonials on SIS Internship Programme.

"After going through the job application process, I understood how SMU students stand out from students from other universities. The answer to this is: Internship stories." Benjamin BOH BSc (ISM) with Second Major in Marketing (Batch 2003)

After going through the job application process, I understood how SMU students stand out from students from other universities. The answer to this is: Internship stories. Through our efficient Office of Career Services (OCS) and our supportive SIS professors who are constantly telling us to take on different internship opportunities, SIS students are given the chance to fill up their resumes with interesting internship stories. Although the requirement for SMU students is to do a minimum of 10 weeks of internships, many students have found their internship terms to last at least 20 or more weeks.

I took on 3 different internships when I was in SMU and I believe that exposure to different industries during these internship experiences helped me in being able to look at business-related issues from a macro to a micro perspective. During the interviews with potential employers, the main talking point of the conversation always revolved around my internship experiences as well as my CCA experiences and thus, I would encourage readers to broaden your horizons by taking up more internship opportunities.

"Having the ability to explain IT jargon to Business people and Business terms to IT people convinced me that I am in the right course, as there is definitely a special place for SIS graduates in the real world." Olivia CHIU BSc (ISM) (Batch 2006)

Doing an internship at Rabobank International is like a plunge into the sea of knowledge where anyone you meet in the office is able to teach you something. SIS instills the importance of humility and learning to learn independently in its students, and that proves to be very desirable traits at work. Although I am in Year 1 (coming Year 2) and from a JC background, learning a new programming language and using unfamiliar development software to develop a system on my own proved to be less challenging than I expected. Professors were always an email or a phone call away to encourage and assist me in accomplishing my task.

More importantly, I witnessed the power of the BSc (ISM) programme during a system development meeting between the IT and Business Department. Having the ability to explain IT jargons to Business people and Business terms to IT people convinced me that I am in the right course, as there is definitely a special place for SIS graduates in the real world.

"For my internship, SIS has definitely prepared me physically and mentally. SIS has showered me with the foundations required to work in the IS field. Working in the the banking environment which highly depends on various systems for its operations, I feel great to be able to serve as a backbone to the successful running of the front end people in the business." DEERAJ Jagdish Karnani BSc (ISM) with Second Major in Finance (Batch 2005)

For my internship, SIS has definitely prepared me physically and mentally. SIS has showered me with the foundations required to work in the IS field. Working in the the banking environment which highly depends on various systems for its operations, I feel great to be able to serve as a backbone to the successful running of the front end people in the business.

During my second year I took up a module called Networking which previously was an IS Core module; however I took it up as an IS technology elective. This course is reaping its fruits at my internship now since a lot of knowledge and foundation taught is now becoming practical.

Working in DBS Vickers Securities has served as an eye-opener for me to the banking and IT industry. I have a clearer picture now as to how IT leverages businesses such as banks. This knowledge is further polished at my internship because I tend to visit a lot of departments within this organisation such as Compliance, Credit, Operations, Private Dealers, Sales and many more.

"Being given the freedom to do research, design and develop web services has been an enriching experience for me." HAN Jun Kwang BSc (ISM) (Batch 2006)

My internship experience covers the integration of web services into web-based content management systems. Web services is a new paradigm for information exchange between systems deployed on the Internet, which no doubt is related closely to our Information Systems course. Being given the freedom to do research, design and develop web services has been an enriching experience for me. This experience is certainly applicable in school for projects that would involve the passing of information, which basically covers everything.

"It gave me a better outlook to working life. I learnt the art of dealing with people of different ranks and backgrounds. Most the importantly, the discovery, that managers who possess a combination of people management, technical and business skills are indispensable, has left me inspired." Elanjikal John KURUVILLA BSc (ISM) (Batch 2005)

The internship incorporated the use of Information Systems and Business skills. The assignments required a good understanding of both programming languages as well as the workings of the express industry.

Given my background as an Information Systems Management undergraduate student, a lot was expected of me. I put in extra effort to meet those expectations – including working over time and doing research on relevant topics on my own time. The internship gave me a chance to appreciate and enjoy life in the corporate world.

Indeed, I was quite privileged to have secured this internship at DHL. It gave me a better outlook to working life. I learnt the art of dealing with people of different ranks and backgrounds. Most the importantly, the discovery, that managers who possess a combination of people management, technical and business skills are indispensable, has left me inspired.

Read more here.

"Understanding end users' business needs and using IT as a tool to develop solutions allow me to grow tremendously." Kelvin LEE BSc (ISM) with Second Major in Finance (Batch 2005)

After more than a month on internship with Philip Morris, my learning curve has steeped up and I have to say that it has been a great experience so far. I have the opportunity of taking up Philip Morris Project Management and had a crash course on the project management fundamentals specific to Philip Morris business model. Other activities engaged include User Acceptance Test and Documentation. Philip Morris relies on IT heavily to process their sales orders and it was IT that strung up Philip Morris Distribution, Warehouse, Sales information, Consumer Behaviour. Understanding end users' business needs and using IT as a tool to develop solutions allow me to grow tremendously. However, it was the realisation of how business processes work in a very unique industry and how a global organisation uses information services that made my internship experience memorable.

"One of the most important things they highlighted was the increasing importance of people with a sense of understanding, not only on the IT front, but on the business front as well - basically what SMU SIS is all about." Sumit SHARAN BSc (ISM) with Second Major in Finance (Batch 2005)

I recently had my induction, and the Campus Recruitment Head as well as recent graduates hired into Credit Suisse spoke during the session. One of the most important things they highlighted was the increasing importance of people with a sense of understanding, not only on the IT front, but on the business front as well - basically what SMU SIS is all about. What they said brought back to memory all that Prof. Miller, Prof. Desai and my other SIS professors have been talking about. Hearing it from Credit Suisse managers and recently hired employees, was really inspiring and made me glad that I chose to pursue my degree in Information Systems Management at SMU. I also met up with a member of the SIS pioneer intake who recently joined Credit Suisse. It's great to meet up with your seniors where you work!

"Students worry about what kind of internships they can apply for, whether it will be a sole IT based internship or whether they'll be stuck behind computer desks for three month periods. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. " SHEENUM Kumar BSc (ISM) with Second Major in Law (Batch 2005)

Students worry about what kind of internships they can apply for, whether it will be a sole IT based internship or whether they'll be stuck behind computer desks for three month periods. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. An IS internship is everything but the above.

Take me for example; I'm working at Bain & Mercer in an IT based marketing consultancy position. Sounds weird? Let me explain. My company basically deals with Google adwords, search engine optimisation and Google analytics. We get SMEs / SOHOs / MNCs to advertise on Google and further more we help them refine SEO services to ensure maximum ROI with minimum investment. In fact, I feel as if I have been able to bridge the gap between business and IT fields because even though I work at the front office coming up with new services, web designs and e-marketing solutions involving a plethora of research, I also have a deeper understanding into what is happening at the back office, the codes/ programs/ applets being used so to speak.

"SMU and SIS have sharpened my communication skills and requirement gathering techniques that enable me to interact effectively with the users and other stakeholders in the company." Joseph SUNG BSc (ISM) with Second Major in Operations Management (Batch 2004)

SMU and SIS have sharpened my communication skills and requirement gathering techniques that enable me to interact effectively with the users and other stakeholders in the company.

Having a 2nd major in Operations Management has opened up more doors for me and allowed me to bring more value to the companies I work for during my internship. It gave me the ability to view processes from a more business-like perspective and consider how technology could bring value to the current business processes

"After my internship, I realised the things that we can do at the interface between IT and accounting are much more than what I thought." YAN Lintong BSc (ISM) & Bachelor of Accountancy (double degree) (Batch 2003)

After my internship, I realised the things that we can do at the interface between IT and accounting are much more than what I thought. Possibilities include financial system design, mapping of financial systems with business process, SAP / Oracle e-business suite financial data analysis and internal control, IT system assurance, and IT security compliance.