My Internship at Electromag Wireless Solutions

During my second year of Engineering at the UTS, I had to find an internship at a company to get professional experience for a period of 6 months. This was a key part of my degree, and encourages students to gain industry experience before graduating. Getting industry experience during my summer break was also beneficial as it complemented what I had learned and let me explore its practical applications. In addition, Electromag Wireless was a great place for me to get ‘hands-on’ Engineering experience.

I knew Electromag Wireless was a perfect place for me to do my internship from the first day at the office. The people I worked with were genuinely outgoing and enthusiastic about the work they were doing, which quickly broke some of the norms of tech companies. Everyone was nice and helpful throughout my learning process about the DAS industry. To ensure my strong understanding of technical concepts, everyone was patient and supportive. Joe, my supervisor, and Santhosh, head of the design team, spent significant time away from their responsibilities to oversee my development. 

As part of my internship, I received the opportunity to travel to visit the design team in Bangalore, India. For me, it was both exciting and challenging as it was my first time living alone abroad. During my stay, I was mentored by Santhosh, who has a decade of experience within the DAS industry. This provided me with the opportunity to develop my technical knowledge.

Jackson with supervisor, Joe, at the Electromag office

During this time, I worked to coordinate a variety of projects that involved high-rise buildings, hospitals, universities, and stadiums in Australia and the U.S. By working on these projects, I was able to get experience using industry software programmes such as IBwave and AutoCAD, and learn their applications. I had a great time and by the end of the stay, I felt that my technical knowledge had grown exponentially.

As an individual, I felt the experience compelled me to try new things, which pushed me out of my comfort zone. I was in an unfamiliar environment with new people and learning about new technologies, whilst being put in charge of certain critical tasks. In doing so, I believe this enabled strong personal growth as I could feel my confidence level grow day by day as I persevered with the tasks at hand. 

After my training, I continued to work with the design engineers to coordinate the design and submission of projects with system integrators. This also involved regular client interaction. By interacting with system integrators and the design team, I grew to understand the importance of a variety of skills, such as:

• Effective communication: needed to resolve any issues with the project, as information needs to be conveyed as accurately as possible to successfully complete the project.
• Sound technical knowledge regarding EME limits, antenna EIRP values and knowledge of the solution implemented is crucial during interaction with the client and design team.
• Good project management skills are a necessity within the project environment. This involves learning to work with clients to prioritise projects, which is essential to meeting their timelines

After completing my internship with Electromag, I was offered the opportunity to continue working there while I finished my Engineering degree.  I would work on a part-time basis during the semester and full-time during my holidays. This opportunity provided me with the ability to apply the knowledge I obtained from university in real life, whilst also testing my time management skills. Furthermore, it also gave me the opportunity to be more selective in my subjects as I was able to identify the knowledge and skills that are crucial to work as an Engineer within a project environment.  

From the start to the end of my internship, it was challenging and exciting at the same time. The challenging part was learning about a different stream of engineering from my major. However, it gave me the opportunity to work on some exciting projects that fast-tracked my learning. Also, everyone was supportive throughout the whole period and was willing to answer any doubts I had at any stage of my internship. The internship not only offered me growth as an Engineer, but also as a person. I became more confident in my abilities by being exposed to the different aspects of life as an Engineer in the Electromag team.

Overall, I am very glad I did my internship at Electromag and I would also advise everyone to get experience within their respective industry. It is a great way to make use of your summer holidays and put theory into practice.

In addition, I would recommend making use of all the opportunities you will receive in your workplace to develop both soft and technical skills to complement your degree. This will allow you to graduate with both theoretical and practical skill set, which is highly sought out in every industry.