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Christian Hansen speaks with Adi Shah about his upcoming internships, his interest in finance and wealth management, and how students can approach early work experience with curiosity, professionalism, and initiative.
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In the first episode of The Insight, Christian Hansen speaks with Adi Shah, a Grade 10 student at the Western Academy of Beijing, about his upcoming World of Work internship and his interest in finance and wealth management.
Adi explains that he will complete his World of Work placement at the American Chamber of Commerce, where he hopes to learn more about international business, finance, and what a real professional environment looks like. He also discusses his upcoming summer internship at a wealth management firm in New Jersey, which connects closely to his long-term interest in helping people manage their money and reach their financial goals.
A central message of the conversation is that internships are not about pretending to know everything. They are about learning. For students, the goal is not to arrive as experts, but to show curiosity, preparation, professionalism, and initiative from the very beginning.
The episode also offers practical advice on how students can make the most of early internship opportunities: research the company beforehand, ask thoughtful questions, take initiative, build professional relationships, use AI responsibly, keep a journal of what they do, and follow up after the experience ends.
Overall, this conversation gives students a realistic guide to approaching internships with confidence, humility, and ambition.
Host
Christian hosts deep dives on professions, pathways, and what early-career work actually feels like in practice.
Internships
This episode begins with Adi Shah explaining his World of Work placement at the American Chamber of Commerce and what he hopes to learn from being in a real professional environment.
The conversation then turns to his upcoming summer internship at a wealth management firm in New Jersey and how that connects to his long-term interest in finance.
Christian emphasizes that students do not need to arrive at internships pretending to know everything because the real goal is to learn quickly, ask thoughtful questions, and show initiative.
They discuss practical preparation, including researching the company properly, setting learning goals, and reaching out professionally before the internship begins.
The episode also covers how to build genuine relationships, use AI responsibly, keep a daily journal, and follow up well after the internship ends.
Research the company properly before you arrive. Go beyond the name and understand what it does, what industry it is in, who its clients are, what services it provides, and what recent work or news is connected to it. Create a simple preparation document with key people, departments, questions, and areas you want to learn more about. It also helps to send a short professional email before the internship begins thanking the team for the opportunity, mentioning what you are excited to learn, and asking whether there is anything you should read or prepare in advance.
Think carefully about what you want to gain from the experience. You might want to understand an industry better, learn what a professional workplace feels like, improve your communication, or test whether a certain career path genuinely interests you. Clear goals make the internship more useful and help you reflect more honestly afterward.
Arrive 10 to 15 minutes early, especially on the first day, and focus on being organized, punctual, and reliable. If you finish a task, ask what else you can help with, whether you can support a project, or whether you can sit in on a meeting. Do not wait for people to build the experience for you. Ask for clarification early when you do not understand something, and remember that you are there to learn, not to act like an expert.
Whether you are organizing a spreadsheet, writing an email, taking notes, or doing background research, do the task carefully. Small tasks are often how employers judge your attitude, reliability, and attention to detail. Keep a short daily internship journal recording what you did, who you spoke to, what you learned, and what questions you still have. That record becomes very useful later for your CV, interviews, and personal reflection.
Try to speak with as many people as possible, not just your supervisor. Ask about their roles, career paths, university experiences, challenges, and advice for students. Short coffee chats can be especially valuable. Focus on genuine curiosity rather than fake networking, and keep a contact list with names, roles, emails, LinkedIn profiles, and a few notes from each conversation so you can follow up thoughtfully later.
Respect confidentiality at all times and do not share internal information, client details, or workplace conversations without permission. Use AI carefully and ask about company policy before using any tools with work-related information. Dress appropriately for the workplace, and proofread everything before you submit it. Clean, careful work signals maturity very quickly.
Send a thank-you email to your supervisor and to anyone who helped you, mentioning something specific you learned from them. Reflect on what you enjoyed, what challenged you, what skills you developed, and whether the industry still interests you. Then use the experience properly by updating your CV, LinkedIn, and future applications with concrete examples of what you worked on and what you learned.
Wishing all interns the very best as they head into their first internship experiences. Hopefully the advice in this episode, along with some of the lessons Christian reflects on in hindsight, helps you feel more prepared and more confident in your own placement. Thank you to Adi Shah for joining the first podcast episode of The Insight.
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