My Internship Experience in Edu-Tech Company
“New technology is common, new thinking is rare.” — Sir Peter Blake
September 2021, I am Interning at Progate, an online platform based in Japan to learn code from absolute basics, used by over 2.4 million learners in 100+ countries. I joined the Progate Indonesia Team, precisely in the Marketing Team as User Acquisition Intern.
This is my first time to be an User Acquisition in online learning platform and it is a lot more than I thought it would be-in the best way possible.
Work that I have done so far includes managing various user acquisition programs with partners, motivating and ensuring that users have started learning on Progate, and other activities related to achieve collective targeted goals and objectives for user acquisition.
It was a truly life changing experience and I have learned a great deal of new things. At this moment, I would like to share you how this internship experience changed my views on value and on life:
- Growth Mindset
Progate has the vision to empower everyone to open new doors through programming. Personally, it breaks the barrier that learning programming is only for those who want to become programmers but as Steve Jobs said,
“Everyone should learn programming because it teaches us how to think.”
Learning to code gave us the power to create. It gave us confidence and opened new doors. We want to make this power accessible to anyone and open up the possibilities and grow from them.
2. Broad-Minded
As a global company, In Progate, we work not only with Indonesians but also Japanese and Indians so it’s important to be a broad-minded person to accept types of culture and behaviour which is different from our own. The most interesting part is that we can learn about other cultures from the virtual meeting. Hearing them speak their language made me want to learn their language so I can join the conversation and vice versa, they also learn Bahasa so they can understand what Indonesians said.
3. Manners Matters
At the core, good manners reflect respect for ourselves and others. That’s what I noticed first about people at Progate Indonesia where they give equal respect to others and partners regardless of age or status, they deliberate ways to show respect, care, appreciation and remorse. For example, saying ‘please’, ‘thank you’, and ‘sorry’ is never missed. One thing that may seem small but has a huge impact for me is when I say ‘thank you’ they usually reply with ‘thank YOU!’ or ‘thanks to you!’ It made me appreciate myself too.
4. Communication is Key
As a student who is still charged 24 credits while doing an internship is very challenging. I have to use my time as wisely as possible so that both internship and university run in balance. Luckily, Interning at Progate Indonesia, gave me a lot of understanding when I had class or was preparing for exams. The key is communication. We have a channel for casual chats and to inform the team when we are having lunch, break, class or clock out to ensure everyone is aware of ‘where we are’ and sometimes the team likes to share funny jokes too at that channel.
5. Focus on the Solution
During these 3 months of internship, it is impossible to escape from mistakes. I made mistakes and I learned from them. There is one thing I noticed about people at Progate Indonesia is when someone makes a mistake, they are more concerned with workable solutions than blaming. This is a sign of a healthy environment to grow in and make us more careful in the future.
6. Team Support
One of the most important things to enjoy working is having a supportive team. Everyone on the Progate team is very cooperative and helpful! not only that, but they are also very supportive of our self-development by providing new challenges and appreciation for everything that has been done.
Between the experience gained and the people I was able to work with, this internship was more than I could have ever hoped for. I am so thankful for the opportunities I got to take part in and the work I got to complete for an amazing company, with amazing people. Cheers to the best internship!