New Skills, Strengths, and Weaknesses

New Skills Developed in the Internship
It is hard to say any new skills are developed during the 10 weeks internship. The relevant knowledge and skills required complete each task in the workplace, no matter for the project development or for the normal working activities, honestly, I have already had. Although no new things explored, my achievement in the internship is still fruitful due to my working skills which are essential to the career development have been enhanced. These skills include business communication skills, time management skills, risk management skills, project management skills, problem resolving skills, and those technical skills associated with web development.

The other significant experience I have gained through the internship is how to be a competent team member in a large organisation. There are many useful and practical things that can be explored. For example, how a large organisation structured, what’s the main role of each functional department to play, how ICT facilitates an organisation’s business operation, how to perform as an ethical and professional team member, and the normal ways of communication between colleagues in the Australian workplace. Such information will be very helpful once I get a formal job and start my career in Australia.

If it can be counted, the only new skill I developed is the ability of developing and maintaining web sites for a large organisation by using Serena Collage which is a web content management platform with ability of controlling and managing multiple sites. Although my skill of using Collage is still on the fundamental level, I have acquired new knowledge which may be useful in the future.

Strengths
One of my strength is the solid knowledge and skills in the web development technology. They are very critical when the job requires strong technical background and large amount of participation of technology, such as web development. This strength can be reflected by my good performance in the web development related project. I completed the project largely without supervision and the result received commendation from my supervisor and positive feedback from most of the stakeholders of the project.

Independency can be considered as the other one of my strength. independent working ability involves some important skills such as problem resolving skills and researching skills. During the development process, I encountered several technical difficulties. To overcome them, I did researches through Internet to find possible and effective solutions. After did several experimental tests according to the researches, I finally found the proper solution and solved the problems.

I also have good skills in written communication. Due to my direct supervisor works largely based on home, the communication between us mainly relies on email. Every time I needed to report development progress, reflect problems, or request instructions, I wrote him emails to convey the information. I also frequently use emails in daily work to communicate, such as expressing my appreciation, requesting help, or discussing solutions for a certain project. The evidence of my good skills in written communication is the high evaluation for my written communication skills presented by my supervisor in the Mentor Evaluation Form.

Weaknesses
There are two weaknesses can be clearly identified through my work performance in the internship. One is the limitation of my oral communication skills, in other words, my English speaking skills need improvement. Although my supervisor reflected my oral communication skills as satisfactory, I am quite aware of my limitations in English speaking. Sometimes my expressions can not convey my ideas effectively which results in my colleagues finding difficult to understand what I mean. Sometimes problems occur due to my inappropriate pronunciation of particular words or inaccurate use of particular vocabularies. In order to improve my English speaking skills, the most effective method is constant practise. By learning from native English speakers, then practising over and over in daily life, I believe this weakness can be mitigated at last.

The other weakness that I have is my insufficient initiative of doing the job. Usually I wait for the tasks to be assigned by my supervisor rather than actively asking for jobs to do. Initially I performed like this because I did not want to bother my supervisors and disturb their work when they were busy. Long time past, it became my working style. Although I acted voluntarily in most matters, it is not an adequate good working attitude for a professional. I think I should invest more enthusiasm and motivation onto my job and be more initiative to contribute my team in the future.