My week as a TORCH micro-intern.
I can still remember, right before the very first Internship session at TORCH, I was imagining myself nervously following a packed agenda and making all the mistakes that first-timers would make in the office, like in the movies. However, none of the hectic scenes actually happened. At the end, this internship experience showed me how pleasant it can be to work with an enthusiastic team, and refreshed all the stereotypes that the TV series have made about working in an office.
What struck me most was the maximum flexibility for everyone in a structured work plan. From the first day, we were told that people felt differently about different tasks, so we were encouraged to try out different things and discover what we like most. Sarah introduced us to website editing, YouTube subtitling and feedback form collecting, which gave me an overview of the day-to-day work at TORCH. In the process, I had a surprising discovery of my niche – that is, I might be a really enthusiastic broken links fixer for the websites!
Not only that, variety and depth of experience coexist in my internship. I don’t think interns at TORCH have a marginalised role in the workplace, as is usually the case. Sarah and John introduced us to the important projects and long-term prospects of TORCH and we were encouraged to be involved in them as much as we wanted. Since I was interested in podcast-making, I was invited to sit in a podcast recording session and become the editor for it, even though all of these was spontaneous and wasn’t the planned job. Throughout the experience, we were constantly reminded how valuable our contributions are to TORCH and received the most thank yous possible.
Maybe TORCH is really a utopian office, but it encouraged me to be a more confident pursuer of my own interests and talents in a professional setting in the future. TORCH also set an example for me as what a healthy work space is like, and I’m mostly grateful for being included as part of it during my internship.
