An internship may last only a few months, but it can take you further than you expect.

Francis’s internships took him from Singapore to Thailand, Vietnam and Japan, exposing him to different ways of working and eventually leading him into deep-tech investment. After graduating from NTU with a Business degree, he returned to work as an Investment Associate at Universal Materials Incubator (UMI) in Japan, where he had previously interned.

Pin Hui’s internship gave her the chance to explore social media marketing, a field outside her degree in Fine Arts and Visual Communications at NTU. Her internship at Socium Consultancy, a strategic communications consultancy, gave her the opportunity to explore the field firsthand. She later joined the company full-time and is now a Client Account Manager.

Neither started out knowing exactly where their internships would lead. Their stories show how much you can get out of an internship when you make the most of the opportunity. Here are five lessons from their experiences to apply to your own internship.

1. Choose Growth Over Prestige

Rather than choosing an internship for its name or prestige, Francis looked at what he could learn from the experience. Having spent most of his life in Singapore, he was also keen to experience working in other countries and immerse himself in different cultures.

“I did not choose opportunities purely based on brand name or prestige,” Francis said. “I looked at the learning curve: Would I be exposed to something new? Could I take on meaningful responsibility? Would the environment challenge me?”

That approach led him to internships at SAIJAI, a startup in Thailand, HOPEE in Vietnam and eventually UMI in Japan.

The three internships gave him very different experiences. In Thailand, he learnt what it was like to work in a startup and saw first-hand how business approaches could differ across markets. At UMI, he moved into deep-tech investment research, market and financial analysis, and projects involving sustainable fuels and advanced materials.

Each experience added something new to what he knew and gave him a better sense of the kind of work he wanted to explore.

2. Take a Chance on Something New

You don’t need to have your career path figured out before choosing an internship. Sometimes, the best way to find out whether something suits you is simply to give it a try.

That was Pin Hui’s approach. Coming from a visual communication background, she had no experience in marketing when she started her internship. Social media marketing was simply an area she was curious about, so she decided to explore it.

Although her role initially involved mainly assisting and taking notes, she soon found herself brainstorming content for clients and sitting in on account management meetings. The experience gave her a closer look at how strategy translated into actual work and helped her discover what she enjoyed most.

“Rather than just taking on the strategy or planning side of things, I find joy in seeing the execution through and creating the final product,” Pin Hui said.

She didn’t know where the experience would lead, but she knew there was something to gain from trying.

“In the worst-case scenario, at least I will learn what I don’t want in my future career!”

The experience gave Pin Hui more confidence to take on content strategy for external clients, showing her that she could build a career in the industry despite not having studied marketing or mass communications.

“I think the fact that I had the opportunity to expand to more client-facing work in that short time gave me a boost of confidence that I had the potential to work in this industry,” she shared.

3. Learn as You Go

Internships will put you in situations where you don’t always know what to do. Learning to find your own answers is part of the experience.

For Pin Hui, that meant taking on a project completely outside her usual work: revamping a company website using Wix, a platform she had never used before.

Rather than waiting to be shown how, she taught herself by exploring the available resources, taking the project from planning to implementation and refining it with her boss along the way.

“Doing some digging around the resources available to me allowed me to learn a lot more beyond what I was originally looking for,” she said.

Francis developed a similar instinct while working overseas. Across Thailand, Vietnam and Japan, he found that approaches that worked in Singapore did not always translate to different workplace cultures.

Instead of assuming his way was the default, he learnt to observe, ask questions and understand how things were done locally.

“Instead of asking, ‘Why do they do it differently?’, I learned to ask, ‘What can I understand from the way they do it here?’” Francis noted.

You will not always know what to do straight away, and learning to work things out for yourself is part of the experience.

“Don’t be afraid of looking inexperienced — you are an intern, so learning is the point,” he added.

4. Think Beyond the Task

An internship is more than completing the work assigned to you. Take an interest in what you’re working towards, not just what you’ve been asked to do.

At UMI, Francis worked on technologies far beyond a traditional finance curriculum, learning to translate technical developments into commercial and investment questions. He also spoke with founders, researchers, investors and corporations across different countries, gaining a broader view of how emerging technologies could create opportunities.

The experience pushed him beyond simply executing tasks. In investment work, an analysis could be technically correct but still fall short if it did not lead to a view or decision.

Francis learnt to ask: “What is the implication? What is missing? What would I recommend? What should we do next?”

That shift taught him to think more like an owner — considering the bigger picture and taking greater responsibility for the outcome.

“Ask for feedback and additional responsibility instead of waiting for someone to design the perfect internship experience for you,” he advised.

5. Build Connections, Build Trust

An internship is also about the people you meet. Get to know your colleagues, learn from them and build relationships that last beyond the internship.

Francis saw this during his time in Vietnam, where building friendships with colleagues and taking part in activities such as badminton helped him get to know the people around him and understand the workplace better.

Those relationships continued after his internships. When his time at UMI in Japan ended, he was invited to continue working with the team remotely from Singapore, before eventually being offered a full-time position in Japan.

“Most importantly, build genuine relationships. My own full-time opportunity did not come from trying to ‘convert’ an internship through one big gesture; it came from repeatedly showing that I was interested, dependable and willing to grow,” he said.

Pin Hui experienced something similar. After graduating, a former colleague from Socium reached out to her about an opening. She believes the trust she built during her internship, along with her willingness to learn and contribute, helped lead to the opportunity.

“I think maintaining a good relationship with the team throughout my internship, while showing that I was willing to learn and contribute, helped build the trust that eventually led to the opportunity to return as a full-time staff member,” she acknowledged.

Not every internship will lead to a job at the same company. But the relationships you build can open doors long after it ends.

“The company you intern at may not be the perfect fit for you, but it could still translate into meaningful career opportunities. It just depends on the connections you make and your own takeaways from your internship journey!”