Internship report essay

I hereby declare that this report is my original research work compiled and has never been submitted to any organization for the fulfillment of internship requirements and other requisites. Every good work is certainly impossible to accomplish single-handedly.Therefore, it is with heartfelt gratitude that I convey my sincere thanks to my family, and best friends for the great encouragement and support that you have given to me again and again. I would like to thank Ms Ngo Ha Thu – Deputy Head of Translation and Interpreting Division for providing us with such a perfect guideline of the report on internship.
I also would like to give my deepest thanks to the director, all of the in Thang Long Technical Joint Stock Company for granting me permission to use their office space and facilities, and especially to Ms. Tam who has been a wonderful supervisor for their help during my internship at the company. The last thank I would like to give Nhung, my four-year classmate at the university for her enthusiatic help so that I can accomplish this report.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This report is a short description of two month intership carried out as compulsory component of Bachelor’s program at the university. In this report, I would like to present the basic information about Thang Long Technical Joint Stock Company where I had my internship, the work I did and the lessons I grasped during the internship as well as my self-evaluation on this internship.
THE MAIN CONTENTS
1.OVERVIEW OF THANG LONG TECHNICAL JOINT STOCK COMPANY AND THE FINANCE AND ACCOUNTING DEPARTMENT: 1.1. Introduction of Thang Long Technical Joint Stock Company: Thang Long Technical Joint Stock Company, known as ThangLong Tech is a small private enterprise located on the Floor 1, DN 2, OCT2, Zone X1, North Linh Dam, Dai Kim ward, Hoang Mai District, Hanoi. Thang Long Tech is recognized as an independent consultant unit by Ministry of Construction.
It registers to operate in the field of inspection, judicial examination all over the country. It provides consultancy and building technical services including: -Observation of geotechnics and deformation of constructed structures. -Investigation for soil conditions for construction project and hydrogeological investigation. -Inspection of the quality of the completed building works. -Testing construction material, building structures.
-Consulting and doing tasks in terms of measuring and making maps. -Surveying and evaluation of the affects to the environment. Thang Long Tech is also one of not quite a few companies which have a laboratory standardized and acknowledged by Ministry of Construction based on the system of standard laboratory of Ministry of Construction of Vietnam. The Laboratory, namely LAS-XD33 is certified to do the tests in the following main fields: -Soil characteristics: To do tests to determine the soil characteristics -Material for construction: To test the criteria in terms of mechanics and physics of material such as sand, stone, cement, steel bar, bricks, mortar, cement concrete, asphalt concrete …
-In-situ tests: To inspect the quality of concrete structures on the site, to do the static load tests, to do ultra-sonic tests for bored piles, to measure the settlement of the construction works, to measure the earth resistance,… -Tests on constructed embankments and leveled grounds on site: To determine the density, to measure in-situ CBR, to measure the flatness and flexure of the ground… The organization of ThangLong Tech is briefly illustrated in the following diagram:
1.2. Introduction of the Finance and Personel Department:
In my internship, I was arranged to work in the Finance and Personel Department. Because Thang Long Tech is a small company, one departmant is in charge of both Finance Department and Personel Department. The former, Finance Department is in charge of the following functions: -Keep business account of businesss activities of the company under the Ordinance on Accounting and Statistics of the State . -Summarize business results, prepare accounting and statistical reports, analyze business activities for checking the implementation of the plans of the company .
-Record and reflect accurately, timely and systematically the company.s capital as well as loans, settlement of funds for the mobilization of supplies, materials, goods in production -Keep track of the company’s debt , reflect and propose plan of revenues and expenditures by cash and other forms of payment, perform internal work . -Draw the balance sheet quarterly, yearly on schedule
And the latter, Personnel Department is in charge of the following functions: -Manage all staff’s resumes, deal with procedure and regimes of recruitment, appointment, dismissal, discipline, bonus, retirement … -Manage labour, staff’ salaries, build the total salary fund, approve the salary allocation, expenditures of the company and the laboratory -Manage administrative documents, papers, records and corporate seal Implementation of common storage materials and important documents . -Develop work schedules, briefing schedules, meetings
-Monitor attendance of employees of the company
-Prepare the corporate capacity profile
2.DESCRIPTION OF THE INTERNSHIP:
The first week of the internship was spent on getting familliar with the working style and making aquaintance with people in the department. I could not start working without understanding the way the company works and getting to know about other employees. Therefore, at first I had to learnt about the companies and its activities, then build the relationship with my co-workers. My very first task is to observe the operation of the Finance and Accounting Department. Everyday the company starts working at 8.00 A.M and finishes at 12.00 A.M., and contines at 1 P.M. and ends at 5 P.M. All workers have to press their finger in the fingerprint time attendance machine before and after working. This time and attendance system records when employees start and stop work, so it enables to have a full control of all employees working hours.
Therefore, rarely did I see the staff come late when working there. Ms Tam, my supervisor always comes 15 ealier to clean the room and make tea for everyone. She is very friendly and helpful. She supported me very much. During working hours, except a twenty-minute break to relax and chat, all are always busy with their missions. I observed how they worked, what they worked and tried to compare with the knowledge I had learnt at the university: the similarities as well as the differences. My supervisor gave me the documents relating this department such as official despatches, contracts, vouchers, and so on to read before assigning me a specific task. She also showed me the location and how to store these documents so that I could do when they were busy or went out for work.
When having received official dispatch, open the monitoring book of received official dispatch, record the number of the dispatch, the date of writing the dispatch, the date of receiving the dispatch, the contents of the dispatch, and the issuing agencies. Then, the dispatch is stored in file in order of the date of receipt. In terms of sent official dispatch, firstly, write a dispatch according to the requested content, then summit it to the director for his approval and signature. After that, open the monitoring book of sent official dispatch, record the number of the dispatch, the date of writing the dispatch, the contents of the dispatch, and the received agencies.
A copy of the sent dispatch is also stored in file in order of the date of receipt. Finally, the dispatch is sent to the received agencies. With regard to economic contracts, Contracts are drafted based on contract templates. When drafting the contract, remember to write fully and accurately the party A, the party B, and the contract value. Because conducting material test for conctruction works is one of two major services of ThangLong Tech, so each contract usually includes the estimated cost and unit price of testing. After being drafted, the contract is submitted to the director for his signature. Then it is sent to the partner for their approval and signature.
After having the signature and seal of both two parties, the contract is made four copies, each party keeps two. After completing all work in the contract, liquidation of contract will be stored along with the contract. After more than a week, I was quite familiar with these document, I was assigned to draw up some types of documents based on templates including quotation, request for payment. When doing these tasks, I could not only have a chance to practice the knowledge of commercial corresspondence I have been studying this semester, but also enhance my computing skills.
Besides, I also got used to performing some basic office tasks such as answering phones, copying documents, scanning papers, affixing the seals, or even how to fix a printer paper jam. At first, I did those tasks awkwardly because they were quite strange. But hitherto I did them effortlessly and even habitually. Although these things seem very easy and are totally unrelated to my study, they are really basic skills which any employee needs how to do. And thanks to those experiences, now I get more confidence to apply for an office job. The company has its own laboratory, so this department is only reponsible for appending the company’s seal the labotory’s seal on test results and give them to customers.
When giving results, for loyal customers or companies signing the contract with the company, the accountant check and take over at the end of the month and customers make payment by tranferring; for others, based on test orders, the accountant writers receipt voucher, then give the treasurer to collect money. Right at the beginning of the second week, following the instruction of my supervisor, I studied the cash payment process, so had a thorough grasp of the requirements as well as steps of this process, specifically: -Based on test orders or accceptance report of conplete volume signed by both two parties, the accountant writes receipt voucher, submits it to the director for his signature, then give it to the treasurer. The treasurer directly collects money and records in receipts and expenses register.
-All receipts must be recorded on the receipt with all the signatures of the payer, the treasurer, the accountant and chief accountant. -Information on the receipt is recorded in the cash book and related books (sales book, debt book, payment in advance book). -The receipts more than 20 million will be deposited into the bank account. In case of the company ‘s plan to pay for the suppliers, the receipts will be kept in safes for payment. -At the end of everyday, the accountant prints daily receipt report and submits it to chief accountant for her approval. -At the end of each month, the treasurer and the accountant check cash balance, compare receipts in the cash book with them in account book. After a few weeks studying and observing, I tried to write receipt vouchers and enter data into accounting software under the instruction of the accountant.
I learnt these accounts in Principles of Accounting at the university, but I had not chance to practice in reality before, so initially I was quite unfamiliar with them. Actually, it is not a hard work, but it requires carefulness, meticulosity and preciseness. This is of great importance because the results of accounting will affect the data and information presented on the balance sheet and financial statement. The documents with errors which are not yet signed by director and handed over to customers can be easily corrected. However, it is a complicated case when the documents with errors handed over to customers needs to be got back and modified.
The accountant has to write cancellation reports with the signatures of both two sides. This may ruin not only the company’s reputation, but also the director’s trust. This procedure relating to the cancellation reports was actually new to me because it is not taught at the university. Concerning payment vouchers, I only observed the accountant writing them, but understood this process. When there are the application form for payment, application form for reimbursement, application form for payment in advance, the accountant checks the related documents and the amount of money, submits them to the director for his signature.
Then, the accountant writes payment vouchers, proposes them to chief accountant and the director for their signatures, and finally gives them to the treasure. The treasure directly allots money to the applicants. Because it is a domestic small private enterprise, English is not commomly used in the company’s activities. However, there are some contracts with foreign or joint venture companies, so I also had a chance to access to documents in English such as contract templates, official dispatches, commercial correspondence. Sometimes I was assigned translation of technical documents including contracts, confirmation, project managament schedule,…………………….. from Vietnames to English or vice versa.
It is indeed the hardest challenge I had to deal with in my internship. All of them were technical terms that I had never seen before. It was really tough and I met many difficulties because frequently there were some Vietnamese words I even did not understand their meanings. I could ask techicians from time to time, but most of time I had to study by myself. Firstly, I looked up their meanings in the dictionary, and then search for their images to choose the right word for translation. I got headache and my head was taut like a violin string whenever being assigned this task..
Gradually, I got accustomed with this assignment. It required very much time and efforts, therefore, I also learnt quite a few difficult words and new knowledge in engineering and construction field. In a nut shell, working in this department, I had opportunity to not only revise what I have learnt at the university but also to broaden my knowledge and brush up on my skills.
3.SELF REFLECTION ON MY INTERNSHIP:
3.1. Evaluation on my targeted goals:
My objectives on the internship are:
-Enhance my communication skill
-Practice my knowledge into the workplace
-Do some translation if possible
To some extent, those objectives I set are fulfilled although I did not have chance to use my English and work with numbers much. However, I gained a lot of lessons and experience in the workplace and real life. 3.2. Evaluation on the internship:
On the whole, the internship was a useful experience. I have find out what my strengths and weaknesses are; I gained new knowledge about accouting as well as construction field, and improved my skills in doing office stuff. I achieved many of my learning goals, however for some the conditions did not permit to achieve them as I wanted. In terms of my strong points, I am quite confident in my punctuality and responsibility to the work and assigned tasks. I also follow the rules of the company in general and of the Finance and Accounting department in particular. In addition, I am energetic and active to learn new things related to my major and soft skills. Even I aslo get used to with the things which are not related directly to my profession because I believe they will be helpful in my future career.
Refer to my weaknesses, because I had not done any part-time job before, so I did not any working experience. On the very first days, I felt everything in the workplace very unfamiliar. Luckily, my supervisor is very friendly and helpful, she guided and instructed me enthusiatiacally, little by little so that I could get used to with the work. The second difficuly was that I was lazy at reading newspapers about social and economic knowledge social as well as other daily issues, therefore, sometimes it prevented me from discussing with my co-workers in the twenty-minute break. Whenever they mentioned a topic or term I do not know, I just sat in quiet and listened to them. Finally, although I had a chance to apply the knowledge into practice, the internship was not long enough for me to carry out the tasks skillfully.
Besides, I realized that the theories in books cannot always be applied to the reality. The exercises we did in the text book are much simpler than the situations in the real world. What we learnt in the books should be applied flexibly in practice. Generally, the basic knowledge and skills acquired at the university are necessary for students during the internship. To some extent, they are the benchmarks for students to be able to study further and explain and analysis economic related matters. In order to enter the labor market, however, the students are obliged to prepare for themselves the deep knowledge on their future profession.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, in spite of many difficulities and challenges, the two-month internship helped me gained a lot of practical experiences and improved office skills. This is also a chance for me to realize my strengths I need to develop as well as weaknesses I need to overcome so that I can do my job in the future