Interns

Four interns, walked into my department yesterday to start their internship. As they paraded in thier fresh overall, helmets and boots, they were welcomed by everyone with usual  barage of questions of which school did they go to, what programme are they offering, what year are they in and so on. They look so excited and youthful.

It's becoming a norm for students to participate in internships every year. But how much of the internship training do they apply in their studies as they go back. How do the schools they come from help them to tap experience from thier field exposure.

When I came along few years ago during my national service, I saw a lot of stuff that reminded me of the things I learnt in school. It was my first time to have seen a three phase synchronous motor. It was my first time to see a boiler. As I engaged in everyday work activities, I began to reconcile the field work to school. I easily understood, the principle of Electromagnetic Induction, mutual induction, and power synchronisation. This took me months of reading and reading to grasp, when I was in school.

Because I have seen it work and experienced it work. Tried to solve problems related to it with my senior Enginers, learning the theory is like koko koraa.

If I had this exposure during school, like this new interns are going to have and was helped by my tutors to present it as a project, I wouldn't have struggled with B's and C's, A will just be straight.

Well, it's my life and I had the option of learning and turning my experience into expertise. Here I am staring at these new interns hoping that they would take advantage to grasp as much as possible.
1. No one will ever call you to teach you. You'll have to show interest and ask questions.
2. Field work does not look what you learnt in the classroom.
3. You have limited time to learn as much as possible.

I wish I could help them as much as possible, but I'm not responsible for them, besides I have my Job description, which is high risk, and interns are not allowed to participate.