grow in tandem with nature

What does it mean to grow in tandem with nature?

By Lassarina Ho, Digital Marketing Intern
NUS University Scholars Programme

Many weeks have passed since my internship, but one phrase stayed – to grow in tandem with nature. You may be wondering what “grow in tandem with nature” means? As obscure as it may sound, it was my most precious takeaway from my internship with Design Prodigy (DP). Allow me to explain.

key learning experiences from my internship

The first and most important part of the phrase is the word, “Grow”. The world around us is changing even as you are reading this very sentence. The question is: Are you following? At DP, I was constantly exposed to nuggets of knowledge as there is a strong culture of knowledge sharing. We got instantaneously plugged into key insights in marketing as well as the latest updates in marketing technology. I soon realised that the world beyond university and the world I am about to step into, is bigger than what I had ever expected.

soft skills learned during my internship: prioritising and finding parallels

However, the cons to knowing the vast amount of knowledge out there, is not knowing what to focus on. In DP, I was taught to look at what the experts in the industry were most concerned about to narrow down my research. More importantly, I learnt how to look across many different fields – even those which seem irrelevant – to find striking parallels which can uncover the “Nature” of things.

One example the founder shared with us was the Stem Cell methodology he applies to training new hires. By cultivating new hires and exposing them a wide variety of job functions, DP is able to increase the potential of their employees to fit into different roles.

an agile approach to project management

Furthermore, DP introduced me to their real-life application of the Agile methodology. With changing times, there is a need to stay adaptable in today’s industry, hence the phrase “in tandem”. Within a short span of 2 months, our group, with no HR background, constructed a Careers Page using self-taught coding. All of these took place in a fluid and dynamic environment where we were made to continuously experiment and bounce our ideas off each other.

Hence, the phrase “grow in tandem with nature” truly sums up the fruitful internship and eye-opening experience I had with DP over the summer.

Read more stories from our interns: Farizah Ahmad’s story of striving for excellence, and Ellen Zeng, Joe Tran, and Lim Qian Wei’s discussion of failing fast and learning faster.