Work Internship in Five Star Terminals Report

Experience is essential when one is seeking a job primarily due to the stiff competition in the employment market. It is vital for one to complement their academic preparation with a range of other experiences such as community service, partaking in sports and other student organisations, being members of pre-professional organisations and internships. An internship gives one the opportunity to learn in an environment where professionals supervise them and in the end achieve their learning goals. The essay will focus on paid work terms, how it met expectations and learning outcomes and how career objectives could also be attained in this field.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

The organisation where the internship was undertaken is Five Star Terminals founded in 1992 to fill a gap for Export Consolidators in the Toronto market. It has since grown and entails all the elements of international cargo, which is exports and imports. Five Star Terminals has a wide range of clients who include Customs Brokers, Freight Forwarders, Nvocc's, Steamship lines and numerous private sector companies. They all comprehend the benefits of utilising the services of Five Star Terminals ("Five Star Terminals", 2018).

Five Star Terminals has several pieces of equipment that ensure they deliver services effectively. They offer services such as export consolidation, which is a loading service and import deconsolidation, an offload service. They also secure automobiles for ocean export, distribute and trans load steel, blocking and bracing and distributing plastic pallets for load controlled destinations. As such, they have trucking equipment and computers to keep records of goods. The company also has numerous tracks and apparatus for loading and offloading consignment. The trucking equipment and computers were the ones utilised during the internship since the department involved was the export consolidation and import deconsolidation. The department associated with the rest of the firm as it provided records of the type of goods being transported and conveyance requirements of the clients ("Five Star Terminals",2018). Therefore, one had the opportunity to interact with various stakeholders in the organisation and gain more experience.

Specific responsibilities were undertaken during the internship at Five Star Terminals. One of this entailed communicating with supervisors concerning any wrong placement of goods for a client. For instance, during export consolidation, some products would mix with others that were for another client. In case this was noted during record taking after packaging, the supervisors would be notified since it meant dismantling the goods and repacking them which would only be done after their consent. The process would also raise suspicions, thus the required approval from supervisors (Rowbotham, 2014).

Additionally, it was relevant to supervise those who were loading and offloading to ensure they completed their tasks on time or within the clients' deadlines. Thus, it could be referred to as a subordinate supervisory role. Record keeping was also another task during the internship to ensure all orders had been handled, which is for export consolidation and import deconsolidation.

Academic training was essential for this role as it instilled teamwork skills. These skills were relevant when dealing with various parties at the firm and especially the loaders and offloaders. It made it easier to ensure that they completed the work on time and effectively. Also, it fostered a good working relationship with them while in the organisation. Communication skills that were obtained from academic training were also vital. They were relevant when communicating with loaders and off loaders and while reporting to the appropriate supervisors. The ability to express oneself is quite pertinent and this enhanced communication with the accountants whenever the records required clarification as they were conducting inventories. Proper record keeping was essential during the internship, and this was also instilled in academic training. Also, it enabled the practice of undertaking work correctly and in the end, managing everything effectively.

During the internship, the lower management tasks or front-line team leader were undertaken as it entailed overseeing the work of regular workers, that is the loaders and offloaders. Also, a direction was provided in their work to ensure everything was completed effectively. The lower management tasks took a substantial percentage of time spent and can be approximated to have been seventy-five per cent. On the other hand, being a front-line team leader meant reporting to those higher in authority and handing in the relevant records import and export records (Daft, 2012). The activity was brief and took ten per cent of the time spent at work. However, it would take more time in case of any irregularities that needed their approval to alter or improve.

The internship can be described to have been productive due to the various learning opportunities provided. It included proper record taking and keeping after loading and off-loading the exports and imports. Also, it offered the chance to practice what had been acquired in academic training such as communication and teamwork skills. Moreover, the experience provided an opportunity to handle challenging tasks some of which were beyond the usual capability. In this way, they improved problem-solving skills.

References

Daft, R. L. (2012). Management. Mason, Ohio: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Five Star Terminals. (2018). Retrieved from https://www.fivestarterminals.com/

Rowbotham, M. (2014). Introduction to Marine Cargo Management (2nd ed.). Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.