Last semester, I was an intern at Denham, premium denim and contemporary clothing company founded in Amsterdam. This internship was processed face-to-face at the headquarters in Amsterdam for seven months. I heard about this internship opportunity from a Communication Science graduate and the job searching website. As a person who has a lot of interest in fashion, I had a lot of fun during the internship. The internship experience was more useful and excited than I expected. Also, it was lucky to be a member of the international fashion company.
I was able to learn about fashion company’s working environment and sustainability. The past seven months have been a time to learn a lot and develop new visions and insights as a sustainability intern.
Most of my tasks were related to supporting sustainability and production teams. I helped to create organized documents about the garment by season and sustainability certificates. I also did the store experience and worked on other projects like carbon emission calculation and an annual sustainability report.
Besides my daily work, my major project was conducting a sustainability survey. I had a chance to communicate with store staff and customers while working on the survey project. Also, I applied my academic knowledge and some professional skills gained from the internship to it. The survey was about what sustainability information affects consumers’ purchase intentions, how can we communicate about sustainability with customers and what strategies can be used in the future.
Through the internship, I not only got the opportunity to apply the theories I had learned to my work, but I also learned practical tips and a professional attitude. I grasped how to communicate with team members and gained a more proactive attitude. In other words, I got an insight to cover the corporate point of view and work creatively and efficiently with an enthusiastic attitude.
In addition, I could meet friendly team members, build bonds, and get various experiences and advice. Without this experience, I would never have learned the necessary posture in my future career and would never have had an incredible professional connection with various people.
Based on the internship experience, I reflected on myself, knew my strengths and weakness and set the concrete foundation to start a new thing. At first, I was afraid because I thought the sustainability internship would be a very different field from my major. However, over time, it has given me the chance to experience other business fields and present my ideas and thoughts. Thank you for the internship opportunity that gave me this experience.
