Ashley Tjikune

At work

My personal experience for having worked at Credit Suisse has been a delightful, wonderful, insightful and definitely an experience of a lifetime, one that I will treasure for the rest of my life. Working at Credit Suisse gave me the opportunity to be exposed to a vast number of things which exceeded most of my own expectations, because it taught me to be more ambidextrous at a time like this in my life. I had the opportunity to work with an amazing team and the first day of work, everybody welcomed me warmly and made me part of the team instantly. I felt valued and appreciated at all times and had the chance to build for myself great relationships with almost everybody within the team, through this I learnt to develop my own soft skills. My mentors taught me, guided me and advised me every step of the way. I had the chance to attend a training session with one of my mentors as an observer, and through this I got to learn of how trainings are conducted and that experience instilled within me a level of tenacity I never imagined I had. My mentor organized some shadowing for me as well to get an insight of how other departments operated. Some of my daily activities included working with excel, doing research and doing postings on a site that my team used on a daily basis. Through this I got to develop a lot of my own technical skills. The support I got from my mentors and team members is something I will always cherish within my heart.

My Swiss host family

We received a warm welcome from B360 team soon after we had landed at the Zürich airport. An hour later my host dad arrived to pick me up. Unfortunately my host mom was sick at the time and could not make it to the airport, but she waited for us at home and after we arrived I received the most loving and warm welcome. My room was beautifully set up with candle lights which filled the room with the most amazing aroma, a quilt of pink, white and grey. Later that day we drove around for some sightseeing of the beautiful municipality of Dübendorf where we lived, and my host dad bought me the most delicious Swiss chocolates. My host family always made me feel at home and they at most times used to prepare for me lots of Swiss dishes as I loved and enjoyed the fondue and raclette the most. Unfortunately during my stay my host family could not travel that much as both my host parents were booked off and were strictly advised to be indoors by the doctor. However, we tried to use every opportunity we got to explore Switzerland together and we had the chance to go some places together such as the beautiful Rhine falls of Switzerland. Moreover, we attended the SBB exhibition together where I got to learn about the manufacturing systems of trains, the history was indeed overwhelming.

Highlights & challenges in Switzerland

My biggest highlights during my three months stay here in Switzerland besides the vast experience and knowledge gained from working here was definitely during my leisure time, where I got to see so much of the beautiful landscapes of Switzerland and the breathtaking lakes which surrounds most of the country. I got to visit cities such as to mention a few: Lugano, Basel, Bern, Geneva, Zug and many other towns. My only challenge was the language barrier at home as my host mom cannot speak English and often times we had to make use of google translate if there was nobody else at home to translate for us. Nevertheless, we got along pretty well and I learnt some of the basic words in order for me to communicate with her and vice versa.

My future plans

I plan to continue and finish my bachelor’s degree in Human Resources and in turn my honorary degree, whereby I will further continue to pursue my master’s degree within the next oncoming years.

 Personal message

I owe my mentors and many of my team members a profound level of appreciation, mostly for all the time they have invested in me during my three months that I have been here, a period where I was enabled to see beyond my own expectations and where I was opened and exposed to opportunities I could only have dreamt of. Furthermore, I would like to thank the B360 team and other stakeholders for the blistering influence that this internship offers and for granting me such a great opportunity, I will forever be indebted.