One of the most valuable training opportunities I have experienced was the internship I completed this summer for a Construction company in the Bay Area. This internship prepared me for my career in Construction Management by providing real world experience and giving me a first hand look at how the construction industry operates in today’s world. This was a paid training that enabled me to gain experience with understanding project management, exposure to construction sites, soft wear utilized by the company to estimate costs, and it helped me gain an understanding of OSHA standards and safety protocols. I think what made the internship so valuable was learning how to apply what I had learned in school to the job. It is one thing to learn from textbooks, but you learn way more skills on the site. Connecting my experience to my academic learning gave me reassurance that I have picked the right career!
The onboarding to this position was incredible. I was contacted by the HR staff by email upon securing the internship. They welcomed me and gave me a high level overview of what to expect during the 3 month internship. When I arrived onsite to begin the internship, I was provided with an orientation and overview of the company’s processes and given a safety training. The safety/logistics manager gave us a great lecture and the HR team made sure we were set up with all the tools needed to succeed. I was assigned a project manager who acted as my mentor and I felt welcomed and prepared to be on the job site.
My internship reflected the HR standards I have learned about in this class by providing effective training, structured onboarding, and hands on learning. Through this experience I developed not only technical skills but also the interpersonal, communication, and problem solving abilities to ensure success in my chosen career.
The worst class I had was my coding class freshmen year. Initially it was going well, but the teacher did not reflect the training practices we learned in lecture. I did not feel like I was set up properly, and if I had issues the teacher did not address them properly. She would delegate these issues to her teaching assistants, and they were not informed well enough to help me through it. Overall, the best practices an HR team can do is prepare their employees for anything that can happen in the field, make sure they have the support even if they fail or succeed, and train accordingly to make sure they learn and feel encouraged to keep trying.