What I learned from 6 internships/coop terms as a student designer
As a student at the University of Waterloo Engineering, I have the opportunity to experience work at 6 different places in various positions and even countries. In this article, I will reflect on my journey, outlining the main takeaways (else than the obvious ones like words in my resume or job experiences) and say how I would do things differently if I did it again.
Having coop terms as a learning experience has been a key highlight of the University of Waterloo; in my major specifically, students need to complete 5 out of the 6 four-month coop terms to graduate, meaning we would have around 2 years of experience before stepping into society. That is one of the largest reasons I would choose UWaterloo for my post-secondary education. However, with COVID, the economy, and a whole lot of reasons making 2020–2023 the most unique days of my and many people’s lives, the plan, of course, didn’t go as smoothly as I would have expected when I stepped out of the high school gates.
My Journey:
After all six terms of successfully landing internships, I can still recall the fear when we were told we needed to start searching for jobs on the very first week of school in my freshman year. After that is just intense resume building on a seemingly blank background: a few activities in high school and several other experiences. It was not a good resume, with lots of whitespace and simply looking blank. Fortunately, I was able to land a coding job with my single interview which I considered very lucky. (And it is pre-covid so if I would do it again, that might be a blank). After that, COVID hit, and the second one was a learning assistant role I took at University, not ideal in terms of work and pay, but at least there was a job.
On the side of those two jobs, I have been building my skills in UX design as my career path. Hence, I was doing personal projects, student design team work and free work for entrepreneur startups of my friends. I was able to use that to apply for designer jobs and fortunately landed all four across the years. One of the jobs is in China as a UI designer, one of them is working with a design system team, and two others are product designers.
Just looking back, it is a great combination of trying different things out, I have experienced both technical and non-technical, coding and designing, different design teams and responsibilities, and even different countries which are all great experiences to let me know a bit more about myself.
Biggest Takeaways:
1. Understanding for myself
As previously illustrated, the largest benefit of going through this journey is to understand more about the different types of potential roles I can take. Each of them has a different feel due to role, culture, company, etc. Trying to reflect on how my mood differs in all the roles can be a clear indication of my future full-time jobs. For example, for coding jobs, I was not a big fan because of the struggle along the way, trying to StackOverflow for multiple hours and getting little results. The frustration is a great downside to the experience, which drags my mood down. Such things wouldn’t usually happen in design roles, which is one of the primary reasons for selecting design as my career path. On the flip side of the coin, design has its own struggles: communication with developers can be hard when designers lack technical skills. This sort of understanding can help me thrive as a more well-rounded person in career development.
2. Exposure to different people, mentors, and styles of company
As a designer, I have been through four different companies with different company sizes, cultures, and management styles. On the bright side, it is great to know so many mid-level and senior designers in this early stage of my career; all of them are great mentors even if we are not working on the same project. I constantly go for coffee chats, portfolio reviews or basically asking for guidance. These can be great food for thought and a different, and sometimes better model to follow than peers because of their industry experience. On a slightly darker side, seeing all other companies can make room for comparison and contrast. It is critical to know sometimes if a job doesn’t work out, it is not your fault. Maybe it is the lack of support, or you just don’t fit in, doesn’t matter what is the cause. This helps adjust my mental model for actual work which is, knowing my own limits, and preventing myself from the whirlpool of self-doubting.
3. Not as scared of real world
This experience built me up mentally and skill-wisely ready for the new world when stepping out of the University. I am not as scared as the first-year kid who freaks out when job searching comes near. We have experienced the same pressure and stress six times, well, I might argue a bit more than other years due to COVID and all the layoff waves. As I become more mentally prepared, I will not be too excited for interviews, be too down when rejected, and know a clear path to proceed when I am not getting jobs, which is to keep moving forward: doing more projects, applying to more jobs, etc. In the six terms, on average, I was applying to 100+ job postings per term. And as the good saying says: if 100 is not enough to secure a job, do 150.
Downside:
Of course, with all these and the University recruiting handbook combined, you might think: “Ah! UWaterloo is so great and I HAVE TO be in coop to try it out.” Well, pause. Things always have its cost. It is simple, time. First, this is a five-year program, which is one year more than most universities. Some friends might even finish grad school by the time I finish undergrad which could be something to to carefully consider: Does your career path require a higher degree requirement? If it does, it means one less year of going into the full-time job which is a big loss financially if you see the yearly salaries. At this point, you might think, just like me in Grade 12, “Hmm, 5 years of school with 2 years of experience, isn’t that speeding things up?” I am glad you ask. This points to my second point, NO summer breaks, ever. This seemed like a speed-up because there were no summer breaks or any long four-month breaks in this program. I am either in school learning or out there doing internships. I have personally felt burnt out and have seen plenty of burnouts around my friends. The stress of going to each study term with the additional task of job searching, especially when you are forced to get a job due to graduation requirements, can be a great burden and make the tough life of engineering even worse.
How I would do differently:
1. Take breaks
Continuing on the past topic about burnouts, one of the things I would do differently is to gap a coop term. This can help me recharge and get some rest before the hard stressful school terms. I can get proper rest and actually a big chunk of time to work on my personal projects, and portfolio, and prepare for job applications which can relieve some of the pressure during the start of a school term. In some terms, I have been purposefully doing that towards the end of a coop term, such as writing work reports, editing resumes, and polishing my portfolio so that I can be good to go later. This is really helpful in maintaining a good work-life balance for the school term.
2. Be more bold in applications
UWaterloo provides its own platform for job applications. I got almost all my jobs there which meant it is so far, at least to me. However, for design jobs, there are other great opportunities outside of the school platform which are lots of startups and other interesting things. Else than LinkedIn and other job boards, one can make use of Twitter (X) and the Dribbble community to advertise and connect to different people for job opportunities, many are overseas which is also exciting. And having the work being advertised is a great way of showcasing skills and effort. Don’t wait until a big project is done, some tiny work can also be posted easily on Dribbble or Behance. Just some food for thought for new designers.
3. Be more proactive
This is one of the largest mistakes I made during one of the coop terms is not being proactive. The reasons vary, from my cultural background to the environment. A major reason is that for a person starting in career, it is very hard to know how to be proactive. I started out asking people in my design team if there was anything they would like me to help with. It turned out not to be effective as people are nice or some designers would prefer total control of their work (or simply because they don’t trust an intern designer, which is common and understandable). In this situation, if a talk with the manager cannot help, a great way would be to start your own evaluation and design exercises with the current product, to observe what people have pain points in daily cadences, and to start doing things that are beneficial to the team on a separate personal file. This is a great addition of value to the team, while not disrupting the normal processing. And even if the manager is not impressed, this is still your work and you have the chance to use it to manage your own growth and influence in other social media platforms.
That concludes my sharing for 6 coop terms. Hope you enjoy the read and find something interesting.
I am open to work as a new grad in April 2024, so…
Work with me!
Check out more about my case studies on my personal website.
Check out more about me on my Twitter and LinkedIn.
Check out more visuals at Dribbble (coming soon) and Pinterest!
I am open to work opportunities! (Freelance or New grad)
