Intro
With this blog post, I am sharing some of my key takeaways from my internship at Power Partners. I will list the top 5, ranging from key learnings to an homage to the beautiful city of Zürich. My goal is twofold. Firstly, I want to give insight in what an internship at Power Partners looks like. Secondly, I want to share general advice concerning internships. So, prepare yourself, as here are my top five takeaways!
- Learn as you go!
- It’s a start-up environment
- Atmosphere is everything
- New projects – different challenges – no repetition
- Essential breaks: life in Zürich
But before diving into each one in depth, let me share some background about me as a person. I am a graduated Energy Engineer at KU Leuven and I was specifically looking for a new, challenging opportunities abroad. I wanted to broaden my knowledge and experience within the field of data science - hence my match with Power Partners.
1. Learn as you go!
An internship is all about learning. It is entirely normal to not yet possess all the required knowledge and experience when you start. Therefore, do not expect work to be effortless. You will have challenges. You will face them. And most importantly: you will overcome them! That is what an internship at Power Partners is about. Being challenged, working on solutions, and accordingly learning a lot along the way. In the first place you will always have to understand the project and associated tasks thoroughly yourself. You will receive assistance from more experienced colleagues whenever needed. But mostly, it is up to you to tackle the tasks. I can ensure you: trying yourself and being involved in projects is just the very best way to learn.
As a matter of fact, I have to say that my data science knowledge considerably increased during my internship. Obtaining a university degree is a good preparation for professional life. In my opinion, however, one thing is usually missing in this degree: real work experience. That is what my internship at Power Partners gave me. I learned much more than only technical insights: How does a working week really look like? How big is the importance of right terminology? How do you communicate optimally with your colleagues? How are tasks assigned to you? What are your deliverables? The list is long. Only way you’ll know this is to try it out for yourself.
So do not stress out at the beginning of your internship: make the jump and learn as you go. If you have the right mindset, you will learn far more than in any academic institute.
2. It's a start-up environment
Oh dear, what was I wrong when I packed all my stuff for my stay in Zürich. Presumably, half of my clothes were shirts and suits. How many of them have I used? Not even half of them. What did I have to expect for my first working experience? Somehow I got that image in mind of everyone dressed in shirts and suits for work. Fortunately enough, I was mistaken. It is a start-up environment with a pleasant atmosphere. Dress up how you feel like. Become part of the team and strive together towards the best results.
So, what exactly do I further mean by a start-up environment? Let me explain. To begin with, you work together in the same office, mostly on the same projects. Due to this, the team spirit is omnipresent, which I personally greatly appreciated. Also, you are at almost every moment in touch with every one of the team. This makes you even as an intern feel incredibly involved in all projects.
Furthermore, working in a start-up gives a certain amount of flexibility. Deliverables must be achieved, when and where you work is of lesser importance. That way, working hours are quite flexible and home office is possible. Nonetheless, I usually went to the office since working in the office environment is irreplaceable for me.
Basically, working at a start-up like Power Partners is different to working in large companies. You are – even as an intern – directly involved with end-to-end projects. Up to you to determine what you prefer.
3. Atmosphere is everything
In my humble opinion, people underestimate the importance of a good atmosphere at work. You spend a great amount of time at the office, so make sure the environment suits you! You will enjoy your work, communication will be better and the team will work more efficiently. Indeed, atmosphere is everything. Having pleasure in the work you deliver is something everybody should be looking for. And yes, that is exactly something I felt at Power Partners.
As a matter of fact, when I compare the atmosphere to some of my previous experiences in student jobs, the difference is striking. Unfortunately, finding the right key for a good atmosphere is not evident. Let me therefore provide some examples of how I felt this was achieved at Power Partners.
Have informal moments
At Power Partners we had many informal moments which benefited the team atmosphere. Lunch breaks are almost always taken together (at the lake whenever the weather allows to). Also, every first Thursday of the month we head for lunch to a restaurant together, as a team. On top, to end the week, we usually have a drink all together Friday evening. These moments are very valuable to bond with every one of the team.
Work as a team in the same office
We work in the same office. This ensures a great team feeling and optimal communication. An interactive environment with questions and explanations is as it were provided. Despite the rising importance of remote work - thank you Mr. Covid-19 - physical interaction at work should not be underestimated.
Explaining complex thoughts as well as general communication remains more effective if done in person. For example, a study published in the Nature Human Behaviour journal showed that vast remote work makes it harder for employees to acquire and share new information across the company network.
As a matter of fact, joint office work allows for better communication and, maybe even more importantly, it connects people . Never underestimate that! At Power Partners for example, making a quick coffee for each other or putting up enjoyable music for the entire office enables to augment the team feeling and atmosphere.
Your colleagues
At last: be lucky with your colleagues. This is of vast importance for a good atmosphere. Unfortunately, this is something you do not control. At Power Partners I had the luck to be surrounded by driven, affable and open-minded people. My colleagues Christoph, Jules, Isabelle, Tereza and Pol are each admirable in their own way. From the moment I started, I felt welcomed and appreciated - for which I would like to explicitly express my gratitude. So please, whenever you do not feel comfortable with your colleagues: think about switching.
4. New Projects - different challenges – no repetition
As you may know, Power Partners is a B2B company that provides business intelligence services to SMEs. Work at Power Partners consists mainly of data engineering, data analysis, marketing, and sales – as Pol Deborsu nicely summarized in his blog. Notice that since every company is different, projects potentially incur very different challenges.
In short, this means that "standard tasks" - say, data engineering - can be entirely different from one project to the other. Hence, no straightforward repetition of work and ever occurring new challenges. Challenges are as a matter of fact good as they help to climb the learning curve and allow to grow as a person. Also, variation and flexibility is half the fun of life, at least for me. In fact, Power Partners as a company does a good job at finding a balance between best practices and allowing the use of different tools and methods for different jobs.
5. Essential breaks: life in Zürich
Let me come straight to the point. Zürich and Switzerland in general, are beautiful! So yes, take advantage of your spare time to discover the many things that Switzerland has to offer. It will only give you extra fulfillment. Since I can simply not cover all of them in this blog, I will list some of the most important aspects that Zürich has to offer (in my experience).
Lake Zürich
Few major cities have such calmness and tranquility as Zürich does. This is more than probable due to the lake around which Zürich spreads. This lake just radiates calmness. Having lunch at the lake, enjoying the beautiful sights, having a swim. Incredible! Me, as a Belgian, could simply not have enough of the beauty and calmness that the lake provides.
In fact, the Power Partners' office is just next to the lake. This allows for relaxed lunch breaks as well as cosy Friday evening drinks, literally letting your legs dangle in the water. Of course, also a swim is possible all year round! I, for example, went for a swim at the end of October during lunch break. I must say it was very refreshing (about 13 degrees)… probably too cold for most of you ;).
Cheese
Warning! If you like cheese as much as I do, then you’ll love Switzerland. Switzerland is by extent the place of raclette and fondue. There is no life in Zürich without it. We did even a fondue together at work. Can it be more Swiss?
Public transport
What an amazing surprise, the public transport in Zürich was. Even though the city has no metro, the public transport is excellent. The interconnections and timetables are very well managed. On top, delays are rare. Actually I stopped checking the timetables when going around in the city centre of Zürich. Missed missed your tram or train? Don’t worry, wait a few minutes and you have another option. On a +2h trip from Zürich to Lausanne the train driver even apologized for a 2-minute delay. l I can confidently say that this is not the case in Belgium.
Beautiful day trips
Switzerland equals beautiful nature. The many lakes and the mountains in the Alps are breath-taking. Many beautiful hikes are possible during summer as well as skiing in winter. From Zürich, you reach the nearest ski resorts in less than an hour! On top of the stunning nature, Switzerland has many authentic and beautiful cities which are worth a visit. Bern, Geneva, Luzern, Lugano… the list is long. All of them are reachable in two hours or less from Zürich. In short: plenty to discover!
Kind-hearted
I must say, I have rarely seen more good-natured people than Swiss – admittedly in my short international experience. Let me you give two anecdotes.
So, during one of the many lunch breaks at the lake, I decided to go for a swim. Forgetful as I can be sometimes, I left my smartphone at the lake. Yes, you feel it coming. When I ran back five minutes later, my smartphone was gone. Persuaded it was stolen during this short time span I returned to the office. However, after being able to call my smartphone, it appeared that a person took it with him with the sole purpose to give it back to the owner. You can imagine: I was very glad.
Or this other time that Christoph and I planned to do some sports during lunch break. We headed to a local sports route in the woods in Männedorf by bike. Once arrived at the entrance of the woods where the route starts, we left our bikes there. Oh yes, we left them there without any lock. For over 45 minutes. Apparently that is very normal here.
Last Words
I hope my key takeaways allowed you to obtain some insights about my internship at Power Partners. Personally, I can without any doubt say that I learned an incredible amount and that I had the experience that I was looking for. So here goes my last piece of advice: go look for your own challenges, be brave, take risks, and try out new things! Life is like a puzzle: sometimes you need to experiment to fit the pieces nicely together.
