Career-related students are strongly encouraged to do a work internship in their career field in order to learn more about the industry, roles and responsibilities within it, and understand if they really want to take on this career path.
Y13 graduate Pierre Ephgrave shared his experience of completing the internship at Metrojet Limited in Hong Kong last year. The quotes used in the text are from his internship report submitted for the core CP course ‘Personal and Professional skills’.
How did it all begin?
Pierre’s passion for aviation started when he was two years old. This passion remained strong over the years, leading him to enrolment in Career-related study with the Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world’s largest and most prestigious university in the industry and our CP partner. Pierre’s first step in getting the internship was to send an email to CEO of Metrojet, Gary Dolski, attaching his CV and explaining his Career-related course. And voilà, he was hired as an intern.
What were Pierre’s responsibilities?
Pierre first joined Metrojet Head Office in Tung Chung “doing the flight operations and learning alongside that team”. He also assisted in different department meetings discovering more about their work.
Then, he was relocated to the MRO (the maintenance, repair, and operations) in the hangars near the airport where he observed daily work of engineers. He helped to prepare spreadsheets used to “speed up the process for engineering, as they would know what panel needed to be opened”. He was also able to help with some maintenance work “such as putting in a piece for the main landing gear, and also cycle the flight controls”.
Not only Pierre used this opportunity to “understand the sort of behind the scenes of how the private jet sector worked”, but was able to record this experience as service learning as he did an unpaid internship.
What did Pierre learn?
Pierre learnt a variety of aspects in the private jet business such as intensive work involved in planning a trip with clients (flight permits, fuel stops, organising pilots and catering, etc.) as well as learning a lot about maintenance of planes. He also learnt the differences between private and commercial aviation such as: “they need to apply for permits in all the countries flown over, a difference from commercials that apply quarterly”.
Furthermore, he was able to meet many people. He specifically mentioned Stewart Borg, the Director of Flight Operations, who guided him and introduced him to people around the office, and James Ma, who let him follow engineers around the hangars and allowed him to experience an engine run.
Why was this internship useful?
When asked about how useful he found the internship, Pierre wrote:
“The skills and knowledge I gained thanks to this experience are going to be valuable for me in the future, as it is my dream to have a career in aviation. While I plan not to work in the private sector, it is still knowledge that I can apply to some aspects of commercial on the flight planning side, and the maintenance side is interesting to understand where issues come from and how planes are maintained.”
Pierre’s experience shows how helpful the internship is for learning about the industry and unpacking one’s interests and passions.
A note for current and future CP students
In the CP core course ‘Personal and Professional skills’, students learn important practical skills such as developing their CV/resume, cover letter, personal statement and preparing for job interviews as well as understanding various cultural norms, a DEI (Diversity, Equality and Inclusion) policy, importance of communication and collaboration. These skills are then encouraged to be used by CP students to find an internship and do well in a work environment.
