Having flown through every stage of my academic career, from having perfect reports in primary school, constant top ten appearances in high school, and even becoming the top student during my Honour’s year, I thought the internship program was going to be a breeze. Boy was I wrong!

Quick Backstory

Around about the 10th grade, I was always in the top ten and captaining sports teams and consequently became one of the most well-known people in school. This forced me out of my shell, and I began interacting more with people and ideas about life in general. It was at that same stage that I had my mind set on becoming an engineer of some sort with the top two options being mechanical and civil engineering. I even had the marks to support the dream, and all was going well. And then matric happened… All my marks were good except the one I needed the most, physics, which then resulted in rejection letters from all my engineering applications. However, this was the biggest blessing in disguise of my entire life.

In the rush to find a university programme which suited to my marks, I ended up applying and being accepted into the Industrial Psychology programme at the University of Johannesburg. I had absolutely no idea what Industrial Psychology was, but I did not care in the slightest. I was in varsity and that was all that mattered. Fast forward to third year which is when I got a firm grasp of the vocation, I cofounded a society for IOP students, chaired the SABPP student chapter, among other pursuits. I was determined to see this through and become one of the best Industrial Psychologist the country has ever seen.

Two years later I found myself in the master’s programme, having been top achiever the previous year and in the hunt for an internship. I knew that the internship search would be long and challenging but no one could have prepared me for the work that went into it. It was very difficult balancing a full-time master’s programme, being a senior tutor, and an active job seeker all at the age of 21. With very little in the form of support. My mental health deteriorated, and I was close to burning out.

I received an offer from a firm in another province, but I had to turn them down as I had my hopes set on Omnicor. The recruitment process was challenging but fun and I am grateful that I held out for the position at Omnicor.

And Here We are!

Just less than two months into the Internship and Omnicor has provided me with opportunities I would never have fathomed. I have gained a lot of exposure to an extremely wide scope of practice within the IOP domain. With each project I am involved in, I fall more and more in love with the career and the work that Omnicor does. This could not happen without the guiding light I have been blessed with for the programme, my Manager, Amelia (shout out to you). She has been extremely patient and kind enough to gently put me back on track whenever I stray, and I will be forever grateful to her for that. My focus going forward is on making a difference and positively adding to the OD Team (and Omnicor) to the best of my ability. Let’s Get It! Look out for part two in August to hear how I have progressed.

Author ~ Dexter Nyamutumbu