Hi there! My name is Xuening Tang and I am a third-year bachelor’s student in Communication Science. Today I will introduce you to a fantastic internship life at ASML! Are you ready?
What is ASML and what do I do?
ASML is the world’s largest supplier for the semiconductor industry. It specializes in photolithography machines that manufacture computer chips. The featured products include immersion lithography, DUV lithography, and EUV lithography. As a big tech company that houses more than 42,000 employees worldwide, ASML needs efficient internal communication for employee alignment. Besides a general communication department, each department also has its own communication team.
I work as a communication intern at ASML Finance. Our team is responsible for the coordination among different Finance sectors. Therefore, I have chances to get involved in different projects, like change communication, project management, people development, and internal media management. Now, let us go through some interesting activities I worked on.
Housewarming party for a new building
In May, Finance moved to a new building near Eindhoven. Before the move, I had been assisting my supervisor in change communication. Our tasks included identifying the relevant stakeholders—who were going to move and who would provide support—and maintaining alignment among them. We published weekly newsletters to inform people what they could expect from the new building and what preparation needed to be done. The most exciting part was a housewarming party for the opening of the new building! It was the first time I organized an internal event from start to finish, from writing proposals to practical work, including inviting speakers, writing the scripts, preparing snacks, and the networking activity! I was proud when I saw people enjoying themselves at the party.
MAGIC program for people development
In March and April, ASML Finance was holding a learning program called MAGIC. This year, MAGIC took place in Shanghai, China. Finance employees from Asia gathered in Shanghai to develop their critical skills and competencies through a series of workshops and games. My responsibility was to write an article to showcase this fantastic program to global Finance colleagues. With the assistance of my team, I successfully connected with the Finance Country Lead of China to learn more about the program. Additionally, I gathered feedback from participants in the program through an email interview. My deliverable is an appealing news article published on Finance SharePoint, an internal media site accessible to global ASML Finance people. The article received more than 1300 clicks in total. For me, this was not only the accomplishment of a writing task, but also an opportunity to network with colleagues from other parts of the world and be a part of a prioritized project pushed forward by the company.
Moving towards cross-functional collaboration
The Ways of Working project is an initiative to drive people to embrace cross-functional collaboration. While each sector can perform efficiently on its own, they are expected to work together and share one voice. This will be a difficult change to make, considering the number of involved stakeholders and different perspectives. I helped organizing the focus groups in which people could freely share their concerns and opinions about the change. I also did my research on this project by conducting qualitative interviews with some participants in the focus groups to gain a deeper insight of their opinions. It was a good opportunity to practice my qualitative research skills and to align my research with the interests of the host company.
Good learning!
That’s the end of my internship journey at ASML! For me, there are two big takeaways. Firstly, COMMUNICATION IS A SUPER IMPORTANT SKILL IN WORKPLACE! This is true no matter which position you are taking. Learning how to convey your message in an appealing, precise, and clear way saves you trouble in teamwork and boosts your working performance. Secondly, academics and professionals in the workplace speak different languages. While academic research values validity and reliability, PRACTICABILITY is the key in the workplace. People are confused when you dump them with theories and scientific research—they are only interested in whether you can transform theories into tangible suggestions. Bridging the gap between theories and practical deliverables is therefore also an essential skill in the workplace.
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