Over the summer, TrailWatch had two student interns working with us. How was it like working at TrailWatch? Let’s hear what our interns say!
Ramona Chan, Year 1 university student:
" Before starting this internship, I assume I would be assigned tedious office work such as data entry, repetitive paperwork. Luckily, the tasks were much more interesting and meaningful than I expected.
Since TrailWatch focuses on promoting hiking and the conservation of the countryside in Hong Kong, I often get the chance to go outdoors to map hiking routes and visit country parks. Although it is quite tiring sometimes due to the hot summer weather, I enjoyed working in nature. During my internship, I also visited the Town Planning Board and Public Record Office to review some historical government documents related to the setting up of country parks. These are some valuable experiences that I might not gain outside of TrailWatch.
Apart from outdoor activities, I was assigned with some interesting projects throughout this internship. One of the major tasks is to help prepare and develop a new website that will be launched in a few months’ time. Other than researching for the content, I understand better how to design a website that is more accessible and user-friendly. Since I am studying for an IT-related degree, these experiences will be useful for my study. In addition to this, I applied some of the coding skills that I learned in my course while updating and editing a website for a program. Participating in the preparation of monthly newsletters and an online survey were also unique opportunities that I did not expect at first.
TrailWatch is a team-oriented organization where team building activities are held regularly. These helped me fit into the new environment when I first joined and brought us closer. There was also a monthly Lunch and Learn session hosted by other organizations that broaden my horizon on environmental and social issues in Hong Kong.
Overall, I really appreciate that TrailWatch provided me with this amazing summer internship experience to work with such a great team. I’m eager to put the experience and skills I learned in use in the future."
Teo Tsang, Year 3 university student﹕
"During the past two months of the internship period, I have achieved a lot. With a small team of staff at TrailWatch, we all have to undertake a lot of work which allowed me to take part in various kinds of work. My jobs focused on data analysis, data entry, and the production of the monthly newsletter.
Fortunately, there is a joyful atmosphere in the office with friendly staff to reduce the pressure from work. As a program of hiking app, we did not have to stay in the office every day, we went to the country parks occasionally for trail recording. The internship also allowed me to gain knowledge on current environmental issues, such as illegal waste dumping problems in Pui O and the land use rezoning issue.
For the past two months, I have acquired data from the Hong Kong government for the job, but I found out there were some limitations during the data acquisition process. The Town Planning Board publishes most of the land use rezoning applications online, but they do not publish the entire application document so the general public has to visit the town planning board office in Sha Tin or North Point to acquire the physical copy of the document which is inconvenient. I also acquired data from the Geodata Store, but the database is not sufficient, some important data such as the area of the 18 districts and the roads are not available. Furthermore, all the data from the Geodata Store were “point” dataset even for the country parks, but country parks cover a vast area that should not be represented using a single point on the map. It should be represented with a “polygon” which can delineate the boundaries of country parks.
Even though my stay with TrailWatch was brief, it was a wonderful experience for me and I have learned a lot. From communication to paperwork and data analysis, these will certainly help me in the future."
Although Ramona and Teo have now continued their studies overseas, we will meet and hike together again!