The despo life of an intern

Oil and gas demands are higher than ever, with China, Japan and the USA having the largest appetite for energy!

This summer, yours truly is working at the Twin Towers! Part of Shell Global Solutions, I design subsea subsea systems to ensure that the plumbing doesn't go awry when you have oil and gas flowing in them. To cut the story short, underwater pipes are somewhat like the pipe in your toilet. Get it wrong and shit happens!

Well, here's where I'm working!

The office is a nice place, all the drinks you need...
and no playing office boy...

In accounting firms, this will be your best friend if you were an intern!

Indeed, its just like what an engineer would do! Scary at times to be treated like a real engineer as there was nearly no training but learning on the job. What better satisfaction to know that your work is going to help decide a project worth at least 40 billion USD!

Getting a taste of that, I would like to do so many other things! Tedious at times, but that's life I guess. Shell is a huge company, one of the largest energy companies in the world and the second largest producer of hydrocarbons.

So here is what interns get paid:

In terms of living, the Selangor government has reiterated that this amount is way beyond the poverty line. Sadness.

Oh well, won't be for long though. Can't wait to graduate! For now, here is a comparison of internship experience I had gotten from two really different companies, Shell and Pricewaterhouse Coopers .

Energy Company Oil and Gas Engineering Retail	Accounting Company Auditing Tax Advisory
Application: Online at shell.com Communicate with HR via email Two interviews	Application: Online at pwc.com Communicate with HR via email No interview
Interns will do: Designing engineering systems Research on new technologies Fill in Purchase orders and invoices	Interns will: Become office boi/office girls Photocopying large stacks of accounts Audit companies Send tons of letter
Duration 11 weeks	Duration 8 weeks - 6 months
Dress code: First day I walked into Shell wearing suit, tie and leather shoes. Everyone stared at me. They were wearing jeans, no ties and Hawaiian	Dress code: First day I walked into PWC wearing shirt, sport shoes no tie. Everyone stared at me! They were wearing coats, leather shoes and ties!
Workspace: Huge ass table in KLCC Got own laptop Got own email address	Workspace Small table Own desktop Own email address if 6 months
People: Engineers. Talks about very technical stuff over lunch. Lots of expats but locals are nice as well. Very international	People: Accountant. Duh! More locals but also very friendly as well. Talks about banking over lunch. Closer to home.
Location Very central or very kampung, ie KLCC, Damansara or Miri	Location Financial Centres, ie Penang, Kuala Lumpur etc
One word to describe first day: Boring	One word to describe first day: Boring
Experience A lot! Digging a hole in the ground is not as straight forward as it sounds. You design for 10 years and when you dig into the ground, you find out that some engineer spent 10mil USD buying the wrong sized 200km pipes.	Experience A lot! Amazing how creative the government wants to tax the hell out of you and even more amazing how people find ways to claim back taxes! Audited a hospital and would never do it again.
Remuneration and cost of living RM 900 per month (KLCC 2010) Drive, KTM and LRT to work RM 300 transport pm RM 400 for food pm Not including rental!	Remuneration and cost of living RM 800 per month (Penang 2010) Drive to work RM200 petrol pm RM300 food pm Park illegally at broken meters =) Not including rental!

Finally, I'm not going to judge here which experience is better, nor which is more lucrative. That's because any experience is a good experience and I have made many good friends in both fields.

Have fun with ur internship!