This is a community challenge, even if it's one week its learning curve is very steep and you really can learn a lot from it.
Throughout the week we've been working with a charity called SYST and I think starting on Monday was quite fun getting to enter the Capgemini office listening to all the presentations.
We've learned to pick the main things out and prioritise what's important because it can get a little bit stressful when you have so many ideas and loads of people contributing to the discussion.
Very encouraging because I'm a Chinese student, an international student, I've never tried this before.
Working with a client, you know, working with another company that's a new thing for me.
So it's now up to us to help give them a framework so they can still help everybody they can, but now there are some deliverable steps each part of the way.
It's been a really interesting experience to explore the consulting industry, that's something I never had any prior experience of before applying, so I think it's been really interesting to learn about how every single project is different and how to approach it as a team, it's a lot more collaboration than I initially thought.
One thing I really think I'm going to take away is working together as a team and knowing how to manage our time effectively, because we're doing a lot this week and interacting with a lot of people and just making sure when it comes to the tangible deliveries, so it's keeping us focused as well like not to get too sidetracked.
Yesterday we went to the client site so it was a really good experience to understand the day-to-day operations and get a bit more information about the problem they have, and also it was really good to kind of get in their shoes and also sympathise with them and learn about their mission and some of the amazing work that the charity does, it's really cool.
Two days ago we had a presentation in front of a panel of judges and I would say that's something I'm not really used to but it's really good prep.
Our mentors they said 'hey your dragon, Dalton, he knows a bit about power raps how about you ask him for some help' so I was like like 'okay Dalton can you help us with this?' and that surprised everyone a bit so I'm glad I stepped out of my comfort zone with that.
Obviously as a team you know we're pitching on the first day and that was quite new to me, obviously we had no idea what we were talking about but yeah I just felt like it was quite a good experience sort of just putting myself outside of my comfort zone.
I'm much more confident than before and now I have the courage to talk in front of people.
So throughout the week so far we've been coming up with action plans and ideas but now we're actually delivering on them.
Honestly it's been great.
I've learned about dynamics which is a lot of applications to help with business.
I don't think it's something you can get anywhere else, it's very unique to Capgemini.
Most importantly I've learned to get on with new people who I've not interacted with before and I think that's really boosted my confidence in working with other people.
You're like 'okay you're doing this, you're doing this, okay I'm managing everything' but it's not the same here you know we have different teams, everyone's good at different things, I think as consultants you find it easier to spot other people's strengths and weaknesses.
It just it's quite easy flowing like you get a lot of guidance, support and I would say yeah just not to panic, not to stress.
No-one's going to judge you here it's the perfect environment to just try new things.
It's been such an amazing couple of days and I'm really excited for the next couple of days so definitely worth doing.