Diego Machillanda Flechas

Student@Work Intern – Data Analysis and Reporting Stream

1) What is a typical day like as an intern in your stream?

For my internship in the Data Analysis and Reporting stream, a typical day began at 9:00am with checking my emails. My team was responsible for accreditation across the business schools, so I maintained a database of documents useful for the next reporting period. I would often wake up to a handful of forwarded university newsletters and announcements, from which I would extract, categorise, and upload any relevant information.

Shortly afterwards, I would zoom into a one-on-one catch-up with my supervisor or a team meeting, depending on the day. Here we debriefed the previous week’s workload, set tasks for the new week, and got our weekly dose of co-worker socialising!

For the rest of the day, I worked independently on the tasks set for me. The main project that I contributed to during my internship was the University’s inaugural PRME report, which summarises the business schools’ approach to responsible management education. Although the nature of the work changed as the project progressed, on any given day this may have included researching the University’s websites and reports for information and examples, conducting mapping analyses of the business school’s subjects and research outputs, and drafting and re-drafting paragraphs for the report.

2) How has your internship supported your professional or career goals?

My internship was hugely beneficial to my professional development. I applied for the Data Analysis and Reporting stream because I wanted to broaden my horizons beyond what I learned in my BArts degree, which I definitely achieved.

I learned how to use Excel in a professional context to manipulate and represent data, including using pivot tables and heatmaps. I learned how to write for business purposes, both internally and for official, public-facing reports. I learned about the different kinds of roles that exist across the University, and had the chance to ask about the career journeys of many of my colleagues. Much of this was thanks to my supervisor, who very early on supported me to come up with concrete professional development goals that we worked on throughout my internship.

Because of my internship experience, I also had the confidence, skills and support to apply for another internship program over summer, which I was accepted into! Moreover, by contributing to my team’s PRME report I was exposed to other UN initiatives for students in sustainable development, which I’m excited to continue being a part of.

3) What did you enjoy the most about your internship?

One of my favourite things about my internship was getting to learn about the inspiring work that the University does, which students don’t usually hear about! Because I helped to compile the PRME report, I became especially familiar with the sustainability initiatives across campus and the Indigenous empowerment activities of the Dilin Duwa Centre for Indigenous Business Leadership. Learning about this, and all the different research centres of the business schools and the work that they do, helped me to really appreciate and feel connected to the University of Melbourne, its work, and its people.

That said, what made my internship experience as amazing as it was had to have been my team and supervisor. From the very first day, I felt welcomed, supported, and included despite how nervous I was for my first serious job. Once I was all settled in, I was treated just like any other member of the team. I was given autonomy over my own work and how best to complete it and my contributions in team meetings were paid the same attention as everyone else’s. Despite this, I never felt overwhelmed because of how supportive and attentive my supervisor was.

4) What is one skill that you have learned during your internship?

One key skill that I learned during my internship was asking questions. Although it sounds simple, I was surprised by how powerful and helpful it could be, especially when receiving a task or soliciting feedback.

For example, in the first few weeks of my internship I was given the task of reading some internal reports and copy-pasting any information useful for our PRME report. When I presented my completed work to my supervisor, it did not match their expectations. This was because I had taken the task at face value – and literally copy-pasted chunks of text, without many further edits. After this, I had the opportunity to ask all the clarifying questions that I needed to complete the task properly, and I learned not to be shy when it comes to asking questions at work!

This skill extends beyond receiving a task as well, which I learned when soliciting feedback. Some of the work that I did was related to an internal working group, from whom my team sought feedback regularly. I quickly realised that I received much better responses when actively facilitating the feedback process and asking feedback-related questions about specific aspects of the work.