Reflection on my internship experience
Questions I answer:
- Has the internship gone as expected?
- What were critical incidents for me?
- Were there any disorienting dilemmas?
- Has my perspective been transformed in any way through the work at this internship?
- What problems was I able to solve during this internship?
- What contribution did I make?
- In what ways was I intellectually challenged?
My internship experience at Adventure Corporation has been great and exceed all my initial expectations. I got this internship to gain some PM experience but never thought I would have so much ownership and responsibility as an intern. This has been a great learning experience through all my research and work with emerging technologies that I had little knowledge of prior to the internship. Most importantly, I have engaged in a lot of personal and self development. The work I have done has been impactful and enjoyable. I have met great people at the company and in the music space. There were some very memorable times including:
- Conceptualizing a virtual Music 3.0 innovative hackathon from scratch and organising the event (geared towards students)
- Getting the chance to develop and start working on a brand new product that I came up with (the social AI-generated music app)
- Talking to senior people in the music industry regarding certain products that the company was developing at the time
- Working closely with the founder on an organizational development plan and building new marketing and product strategies going forward (especially with the COVID-19 pandemic happening)
There weren’t actually any big disorienting dilemmas. It was definitely hard working remotely from a completely different time zone, which limited internal team communication. Also, I was unfamiliar with a lot of the technologies and tools being used at the company coming in, so I had to spend a lot of time learning a lot of the basics. Besides that, everything went pretty smoothly, and I think I did a great job in handling any other issues and overcoming any obstacles that I faced along the way. As I mentioned before my perspectives on the range and impact of the applications of emerging technologies has completely changed (especially in the music industry). Also, my work through the internship exposed the nature of the startup environment and contradicted my initial assumptions on what working at a startup would be like (for the better).
As mentioned throughout the rest of my internship insights blogs, I believe that I have made a lot of contributions and impact, especially through the projects and products I have been working on. With the hackathon and the app that I have been working on, I have helped further the company’s goal of creating impact with emerging technologies. My ideas are focused all around making music creation easier for artists and creating more diverse and multifaceted music consumption experiences for people. The music industry is going to change and have worked on improving creator-consumer experiences and generating solutions to current problems in this area, with the help of AI, blockchain and AR/VR.
I have also contributed to the development of the organisation itself, by working on growth and branding strategies with the founder, as well as ways to improve the internship program and get more bright minds involved. I was intellectually challenged throughout the internship because of all the new concepts and technologies that I had to learn about and become accustomed to. I never found any of my work easy and had to build up a lot of knowledge, sometimes spending hours reading articles and documentation online in order to finish tasks. I love solving hard problems and working on difficult challenges, so this was an enjoyable experience overall. The skills and knowledge that I have developed over my internship will definitely help me in the future, throughout my career.