One month has passed. My internship so far has been a really interesting learning experience. I am interning in a small accounting firm and I am in the audit department. I know accounting, however, I realize that I know nothing about auditing. I find auditing much more tedious than I thought I would. Honestly, I must admit that I found it hard because personally, I am not a very detailed sort of person. It doesn’t help that my senior expects me know certain stuff in the beginning. It was definitely hard because I knew nothing about auditing.
Not only that, I also missed the fact that my time was no longer my own. Since I am now interning, my time for a number of hours, belongs to the firm. I could no longer nap if I felt tired or read if I wanted to. I had to do the work that was assigned to me. I have worked before, but for some reason, interning hits me hard on this.
I must even admit that I thought of quitting because I didn’t think that this whole thing was working out for me. But thankfully, I didn’t. I decided to give it more time. After all, my internship is only for two months and that’s rather short. So I might as well stay and finish the entire duration of the internship. The thing about internships is that, I learnt more about myself. I realize that every new experience is good because you get to learn more about yourself and how you handle things. I must admit that I wasn’t handling things very well in the beginning. There was a lot of internal screaming in my head and how I hated it. But over time, it’s getting better. Now, I’m beginning to find that I am enjoying my internship. I’m glad that I started this internship.
However, this internship has also made me think a lot about my career and what I want out of it. Honestly, I am not quite sure what I really want in my career. There has been thoughts on getting professional qualifications such as ICAEW or ACCA or CFA. However, since my degree is Economics and Management, I know that I have no exemption for ICAEW or ACCA. It made me wondered if I should have taken Accounting and Finance instead. But at the same time, I don’t regret what I have studied because I have truly enjoyed what I have been learning.
For now, I’m still not quite sure what I want to do for my career. But then again, I still have time to figure it out.
I also learnt from my internship that it is important to get a job that I enjoy because if I enjoy my work, then, it won’t feel like I’m working and I would love it. Because I really don’t want to count the hours down to the end of work for the day. I would like to feel energized and completely enjoy what I’m doing rather than dreading the moment. As to how to find that job for myself, now that will be interesting. But we’ll worry about that later because the results are coming out soon.
Carmen is studying the BSc Economics and Management at a recognised centre in Malaysia.
