Internship Learning Experience Reflection 1

Roxanne and I are currently helping Sir Speedy, a print and design company, to research information about how to make its business green. The main reason for doing this is to educate not only the people in print and design industries, but also the cooperating units and clients.

We've been at our internship for eight times since October 8th. My main job for the first four times was to help my mentor, Roma, to compile a list of green-papers, research Chinese information online and translate an English pamphlet into Chinese. I have to say that I was quite nervous for the first few times there because I knew nothing about this print and design industry. I had some difficulties with translating some technical terms into Chinese. However, I was a "problem solver" because I tried my best to research anything I can find. What I got out of this translation experience is that I feel very privileged to be able to read and write in Chinese fluently. Since China is becoming a competitive country in the world, I realized how this can be my greatest benefit for future.

For the fifth and sixth time, Roxanne and I went of to a meeting with the paper vendor. We sat down with the vendor and chatted about the future market of green paper alternatives, etc. The boss of the paper company invited us to join a lunch with him and paid the money for us. It was the first time ever that I feel like I'm an office worker who's attending the meeting ever! I also reported the information I got to Roma. However, we did not meet the expectation, so I got on the phone to try to get the missing information from the paper vendor. Overall, it was a fresh experience!

Roxanne and I did some actual designs for the clients on the seventh and eighth time. I was quite excited because I got to learn how to use designing programs (eg: InDesign and Illustrator) other than Photoshop.
Speaking of doing designs for clients, Roma told us that the designs they created will eventually belong to the client, not themselves. This is the reality of this industry. For me, I can totally understand this "reality"; however, I sometimes do not like the feeling of my art work being owned by someone else. If I ever get into this business one day, I would, perhaps, have to adjust my mind-set to get myself ready to accept this reality.