The Purpose & Benefits of Internships in Singapore for Undergraduates

In Singapore, university internships are super common. Unless you’re on an organizing committee for summer orientation camps or on an exchange program, chances are that you’re planning to do a summer internship. For some universities like NUS, SMU, and NTU, it’s a graduation requirement.

However, for many students (myself included 😢), university might be your first time being exposed to the world of marketing. 

As such, you might not have any relevant experience to bring to undergraduate internship interviews. However, there are other ways to get an internship without prior work experience. For example, if you’re looking to get a marketing internship with no experience,  joining school clubs and doing some personal online learning can help to increase your value as an intern to a potential employer.

But beyond being a graduation requirement, there are a lot of good reasons to do an internship - let’s take a look at some of them! 

Types of internships 

Summer Internship

This is the most common type of internship that most students are likely to do, and most companies offer internships during the summer. That said, this means that summer internships in Singapore are a lot more competitive, especially if you’re looking at bigger companies that have the luxury of a large pool of student talent to choose from.

Leave of Absence (Term time) internship

Some companies offer term-time internships, which require you to take a leave of absence from school. They’re mostly offered from Jan-June or Jul-Dec, but there are shorter, three-month long ones too.

The main perk of taking an LOA for an internship is that interning for a longer period gives you time to have a wider variety of experiences as a working adult. If you’re working on a long-term project, you get more involvement and might even get to see the project to completion! It's also slightly less competitive since most students squeeze their internships into their summer breaks. 

Part-time internship

If your bidding/course registration didn't go too well, or you’re planning to have a slightly lighter semester, you can consider taking on a part-time internship to maximize your time and gain more experience. Options may be slightly more limited, but one way to secure a part-time internship is by extending your existing summer internship or reaching out to previous internship supervisors.

What is the purpose of a Singapore university internship?

Gain industry experience

Of course, the main purpose of an internship is to gain industry experience. Considering that most entry-level roles (and even some internships at bigger companies) require some relevant experience, taking up an internship can equip you with the experience and skills needed to land your first job.

These real-life experiences give you access to real problems and situations, coupled with working with real professionals and software, which is something that is really difficult to simulate in school.

For example, when I interned in the HR department at Royal Caribbean, I organized the annual Christmas dinner event and had to work with several external parties. This involved taking into account the opinions of our planning committee, planning activities for the event, and managing the budget. It was a new and interesting experience that value-added to my plans to work in the hospitality industry.

I got the chance to organize the annual Christmas Dinner!

Explore your career path

An internship is like a tasting course for the career you’re exploring. It gives you the chance to try out the role and learn about the day-to-day life and responsibilities of the job. Although reading up or attending career talks definitely helps with your understanding, nothing really beats real-life experience.

Even if it turns out that you don’t like that career path, gaining real-life work experiences still impart you with transferable work skills that you can apply in future jobs.

Mentorship

Another reason to take up an internship is for mentorship. Usually, an intern is tagged to a team or a supervisor, who will show them the ropes of the job. This provides a great opportunity to learn from experienced professionals about the job role and their career paths.

Some of my friends even took the initiative to set up one-on-one mentorship meetings with their supervisors every month, and their supervisors were kind enough to impart their knowledge and some advice to my friends. Of course, be respectful of their time if you do this, and come prepared with questions or discussion items!

What are the benefits of doing undergraduate internships?

Building connections in the industry

As an intern, you’ll hopefully get the chance to work with or meet a variety of people with different levels of experience. While learning from them, you’ll also be developing bonds with them, which could help you discover job opportunities in the future. You might even have the chance to work with them again!

The connections you make can also help as references for your future employers. You could request to list your internship supervisor as a reference for recruiters to contact.

Job opportunities

An internship is the perfect opportunity to show your skills and value to the company and can serve as a ‘trial period’ to see if they should hire you full-time. Of course, this depends on the available positions. 

For the company, hiring an intern to take on a full-time role can help reduce onboarding costs. Based on your internship, they'll have a sense of whether you fit in and contribute positively to the team. So remember to bring your A-game to your internship!

Develop soft skills

While learning technical skills is important, pretty much every job out there needs some level of soft skills - the ability to communicate effectively, interpersonal skills, make presentations, or resolve conflicts. Although school and group projects give you a chance to exercise these skills, an internship sharpens these skills in a real work setting.

As always, you’re taking an internship to learn - so never hesitate to reach out to your fellow colleagues or supervisor to get some feedback on how you’re doing!

My team at Sage Mediation (pictured below) was really kind in providing feedback for the pieces of work they gave me to work on, which showed me what to look out for in the future and deliver better quality work. They also let me take part in their mediation training workshops as a participant, and I gained conflict resolution skills!

Small company lunch on the last day of my internship!

Should I go for internships in Singapore or overseas ones?

Since the borders started to reopen, your friends have started travelling or going for overseas exchange programs.

One of our SMU alumnus, Nigel, did an overseas internship in São Paulo, Brazil!

Seeing their Instagram stories every day has rekindled your wanderlust. Maybe it’s time for you to kill two birds with one stone and intern abroad! Beyond the novelty of living and working abroad, overseas internships come with their own unique benefits.

Here are some considerations to think about before going for an overseas internship:

1. Go for the right reasons

The idea of interning overseas may seem cool, and it definitely is a novel experience for most of us. However, the novelty wears off quickly, and you’re likely to face many challenges both in the workplace and in adjusting to being away from your loved ones for a long time.

Hence, it’s really important that you’re motivated and truly want to intern overseas and ready to take on the challenges that interning abroad will pose.

2. Affordability

Another critical factor to consider is the costs that you’ll have to incur while you’re there - rent, food, transport, and others. 

While applying for government grants or using savings can help to pay for some of these costs, being able to find a paid overseas internship is a good way to alleviate this burden. Of course, good saving habits help too!

3. Language barrier

While there are international companies where you can get work done fairly efficiently without the need to learn the native language, you may not get the full internship experience. 

For instance, Nigel shared that all meetings were conducted in Portuguese, and there was no way he could’ve understood if he had sat in. It also limited his exposure to the types of tasks as many of them needed to be done by someone proficient in the language.

The importance of a student internship in Singapore cannot be understated!

As a student, internships in Singapore are practically a necessity for you to land your first job.  

Good for you if you know the field you plan to work in! And even if you don’t, that’s ok too. Doing internships can not only give you relevant and practical experience but can also help you decide if a particular field is for you.

Whether you choose a local or international internship, the experience you gain is going to be invaluable in your career and life in general.

I hope this article has been useful in helping you understand the purpose and benefits of internships! If you’re still unsure about which field you want to work in, fear not! There are plenty of resources online to get more information.

Over at markonmag, we publish content about various marketing fields. Check out our blog today! 😉