During this corona crisis, WeLLDesign is continuing its work full steam ahead. Also as a training company: the vocational students' (MBO) internships are not experiencing any delays.
During this corona crisis, WeLLDesign is continuing to work at full capacity. Also as a training company: the students' work placements are not experiencing any delays. They are doing a remote work placement. Completely working from home during a placement period is of course a challenge, but after some figuring out, the WeLLDesign team was able to easily arrange this.
Here is an interview with the two vocational education trainees from the course Building engineering, towards the Design & Architecture department of MBO-Utrecht, Gianni van der Linden and Bastijn Kamphuisen.
Remote vocational work placement at WeLLDesign: it is possible!
Gianni and Bastijn started their placement normally on 10 February – so in the workplace – but ‘walk’ have been doing their work placement remotely since 16 March: they are staying at home.
“Well, that's a shame...”
Remote work placements are a huge change. “It is a shame though,” they both say. “I'd rather work there,” says Gianni. They miss the physical work environment. And they lack the placement feeling, the inspiration and motivation that you gain as a student at the workplace and the challenge of the direct work environment where you see staff working on various projects and can ask your questions immediately.
The added value: self-awareness and working independently!
Both indicate that a remote internship is very different and demands a lot from you. However, both also say that they learn a great deal from it: you gain self-awareness and you learn to work independently.
The work placement day starts with a digital team meeting. They can ask questions via WhatsApp and email. The lines of communication are short, but it sometimes takes a while to get an answer. “And then, instead of waiting, you get to work to figure it out yourself,” says Gianni. “And to read the assignments carefully once again first.” Bastijn agrees: he now looks things up himself first, such as the standards for the height of a bathroom. Only when he cannot figure it out does he put his question to his work placement supervisor.
Genuine leather work
Initially, Gianni struggled to find a good work rhythm, maintain sufficient concentration and stay active. He has now learned how to solve this himself: his experience is that if he gets stuck or distracted, he is better off temporarily switching to the other project. After a while, he switches back to the first project and suddenly things flow. Thanks to this variety, he works with concentration for longer and achieves better results. He also applies all sorts of tricks independently (standing instead of sitting, different music, brief physical exertion in between). Both Gianni and Bastijn independently note that these learning outcomes are very valuable. Gianni: “By doing a remote internship, I've learned to work the way it should be done in real life.”.
Gianni and Bastijn are working on the CHIL project. CHIL stands for Circular High-Tech Industrial Lightweight build. They develop eye-catching compact homes on land and floating on the water. In due course, these will come onto the market at a very affordable price.
The classmates are each working hard in their own rooms. They motivate each other by introducing an element of competition: “We keep each other on our toes and push each other. With us, there’s no standing still; we are working flat out on our future.”.
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