What is MFA like? Thoughts from an intern.

Hello again everyone!

I was busy the last 2 weeks doing an MFA internship. For those of you wondering what an MFA internship is like, I personally enjoyed it very much.

MFA is a really good place to work in. I will say that you will only know what MFA is like when you intern here, all the talks etc and what people say really dont reflect how wonderful it is here. For someone like me who is interested in current affairs, coming to MFA fits perfectly well with what my interests.

There were 5 interns in total, Melissa, Krystal, Yee Juin, recruited through the MFA website by MFA directly, and me and Baojia who went through PSC - and hence obliged to go for centralized programmes for interns, not that it is bad really. We were posted to different desks, Melissa to Americas, Krystal to Southeast Asia, YeeJuin to Japan/Korea at Northeast Asia, Baojia to China at Northeast Asia too and yours sincerely to Africa at the South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa desk.

We had orientation the 1st day, where different people from different directorates came to talk to us about their work. It was very interesting and amazng to see the scope of the work that they do, the level of detailedness was crazy, how they react to crises like the Mumbai attacks and after going through all those talks you know how safe you are overseas with MFA around and you gain a deeper appreciation for what they do.

I was a little nervous the next day when I went into my directorate (cos I was the only intern posted there!) but my fears proved to be unfounded. I have fantastic colleagues who went out of their way to help me and give me advice. They struck me as a group of fun-loving people who were very friendly and they never regarded me as 'an intern' but more like a 'colleague', for which I am quite thankful for and it really let me feel that MFA people are not abnormal. There are no office politics here, and everyone helps each other out.

The other thing that really struck me was how commited they were to doing their job and making sure that Singapore's image is protected. I think this is the nature of the whole organization and really once you compare such a working environment to some others, you will realize that MFA is a very wonderful environment to work with.