Sophie Wynkoop
This summer, a handful of high school students at Saint Maur did internships at companies and organizations in the greater Tokyo area. Internships are an enriching experience for high school students because they can provide real-world experiences and give students a head start in choosing their careers.
Pierre (Grade 11) interned at a Japanese company called TST for five days. The company handles information regarding the importing and exporting of ships. At his internship, he shadowed the CEO of the company during business transactions and meetings.
Pierre thinks that it was useful to see how the company organizes its workers, as well as how professional conversations are handled. He added that, “The kind of respect that people have for each other is actually really different from the way people interact in school and I really got to see that in the internship.”
The overall experience was especially interesting because he got to view how workers communicate in their own ways. Pierre said that he would definitely recommend interning at TST or any company.
He emphasized the importance of having good communication skills. “You should definitely communicate with the workers there. Remember that the aim is to actually understand what they are doing. The internship didn’t have any specific tasks like some other internships, so it was really important for me to listen a lot.”
When doing internships, it’s useful to look at the bigger picture and not only the internship itself. Pierre observed that strict manners are the norm at traditional Japanese companies. There are certain cultural cues that the workers are expected to know. Things like how you hold yourself, your body language, and your idiolect are essential to business life.
Rio and Himari (Grade 12) both interned at the same organization, 104 Art Studio in Motomachi. Their jobs entailed helping young children complete various art projects. They gave them constructive advice and helped them learn artistic skills.
“The internship was mostly done in English,” Rio said. “Some kids are Japanese, so they can’t speak English, but they can understand English. So we kind of focused on speaking to them in English, but if they didn’t understand, we kind of, you know, give them a hint.” Part of the internship was also helping some children improve their spoken English. Both Rio and Himari really enjoyed their internship, and especially liked the tasks that were set for them to perform.
“We did pretty much the same as what the teacher does. So we kind of look after the kids, conduct them and tell them what to do. There’s no right or wrong in art, but we still tried to lead them to what we thought was best,” said Himari.
The importance of having patience with young children is a skill that Rio and Himari improved on during their time interning at the art studio.
They also said that communication skills were an important part of the experience. “We needed to have a lot of interactions with people. They’re kids, but they’re still people. So, communication wise it’s useful because you need to be a lot more flexible.” These are skills that are essential for everyone to have, so it was fortunate that Rio and Himari were able to practice these skills during their internship.
“Communication and collaboration skills might help for other environments in the future. Maybe with business clients,” added Rio.
A common thread in the two different internships was knowing how to communicate effectively with people in their working environment.
Pierre said that the most important takeaway from his experience was that you have to communicate with your colleagues and managers in a professional manner. Rio and Himari also noted how important communication skills are when dealing with children. Perhaps this is something that can be taken as a piece of advice for internships that other Saint Maur students will do in the future.
Overall, internships are a great summer activity for high school students. They give students a chance to briefly try out careers they might wish to pursue or to learn about work culture in a specific field. Saint Maur students should definitely consider spending part of their summer interning and learning more about what working is really like!