Learning on the Job: Being a Seaspan Intern

February 28, 2025

On January 6th, 2025, Seaspan welcomed 43 new faces to the company, spanning a diverse array of fields, from Engineering to Finance, Communications to Innovation — and just about everything in between. Despite the vast differences in role, they all had one thing in common. They were all students.

As part of Seaspan’s internship program, a triannual intake of post-secondary and post-graduate students are given the unique opportunity of getting first-hand industry experience in their chosen field. Through the program, these students can practice and demonstrate skills learned across their area of study, furthering both their education and their development as a professional.

The internship experience is an incredibly unique one. Unlike the rest of the permanent workforce, interns enter their position with the explicit knowledge that their time is limited — most with a return to school imminent. Internships are the start of a transition from the academic environment where many have spent the past few years to the unfamiliar domain of the workplace. It’s a stark change in structure.

Yet, alongside that change, many interns are embracing the chance to get a view into a potential career. Smita Debarati — Seaspan’s Outfit Engineering intern — has appreciated the chance to adapt to what her future could hold.

“It can feel like it’s a lot, but it’s a nice snippet to see how your life will look like after you graduate,” she said. “It’s a great opportunity for any kid to learn at such a young age.”

Alongside the potential future insight, others have embraced the change of pace that a work term can provide. Nav Thukral, the Intellectual Property (IP) and Contract Compliance intern, specifically pointed to the work / life balance of a Seaspan internship as a welcome shift from his academics.

“It is eight hours… but after that, you have the whole time for you,” he said. “Whereas when you are on your study term… you are working 24 / 7, and if you are not, your mind is working 24 / 7.”

Even though these interns are no longer in an academic environment, there is still a lot of learning to be done. Eric Wen-Liu, a Business Administration intern for Seaspan Marine, cited the challenge of quickly picking up industry terminology.

“The most shocking thing was how much technical knowledge there actually is in the marine transportation field,” he said. “There’s a lot of different language that, if you just come in, people would just say…  because to them, it’s like common sense — but for someone who’s coming in, that’s new.”

Something else that is new to the incoming class of interns is the responsibilities inherent in a workplace setting. As Nav points out, that responsibility comes from an intern’s place as an important part of Seaspan’s overall team.

“When you are a student… you are responsible for what you’re doing — if you submit an assignment late, it’s your grades,” he said. “Whereas over here, if you submit one file late, then it’s the team’s responsibility. You’re a very small part of a very big team — a very important and crucial part of it.”

That sense of accountability to the team was echoed by Seaspan’s Integrated Logistics Support intern, Sarthak Bishnoi.

“As an intern, you do get an actual job… you have the work and you feel responsible — if I do this wrong, anything can go wrong on the ship,” he said.

Yet as Sarthak points out, that added responsibility is at the core of an internship’s appeal — it’s the chance to work with a team and produce something bigger than yourself.

“It’s just realizing that you are a small part of a very big project, and still you’re helping,” he said. “That really means a lot.”

Yet, that integration into a substantive project isn’t just something that happens immediately. Especially as a newcomer who often has little to no prior experience in the shipbuilding industry, it can be difficult to learn and adjust.

That process, however, is made much easier by the efforts of the Seaspan team to create a welcoming setting, as Smita explains.

“People around me are just coming up to me, introducing themselves — so it cuts the tension,” she said. “You can go up to them and ask them the most normal questions, and they would make you feel like you weren’t a burden to them.”

Nav and Eric shared similar experiences — that while a large team brings with it the need for accountability, that accountability is paired with an overwhelming amount of assistance.

“The whole IP team, they are very supportive,” said Nav. “They will say, ‘If you have any doubts, just come to us.’”

Eric attributed this support to a strong culture that permeates throughout all of Seaspan as an organization.

“The one thing I want to reiterate is how good the culture at Seaspan is,” said Eric. “Everyone is so nice and welcoming, and it makes me feel really at home.”

With a strong team behind them, lifting them up, these students have been given the opportunity to thrive in their roles. While this newest crop of interns has only had a few weeks to adjust to their new surroundings, they are still already discovering the wealth of unique possibilities their positions each hold.

For Eric, he’s been able to appreciate the diversity of perspectives that he has encountered in his position.

“I generally think my role is one of the coolest internship opportunities, because I get to talk to so many different people in so many different departments,” he said. “I get to see an overview of the whole business and understand everything about it, from top to bottom.”

Smita, on the other hand, values the flexibility she’s experienced in her time as an Outfit Engineering intern.

“It’s more of a balance between mechanical and naval architecture. So, going in, you have space to learn both sides,” she said. “It’s nice to see that I have leverage to maybe pick a different industry… if you’re starting off with a flexible program, it’s a cool thing to be a part of.”

With terms lasting either four or eight months, the interns in this newest cycle still have lots to learn. But that’s the exciting part. As every one of them continues to take on more responsibility, learning and growing alongside a team of experienced experts in their specialized fields, their toolbox of skills to take into the future will expand immeasurably.

As Sarthak explains, the tangible application of skills made possible at an internship is hard to replicate elsewhere.

“If you are just doing the courses, you won’t ever understand what’s happening in real life,” he said.  “When you work in such an environment where you actually see this big project with more than 300 people working on it, you know how to connect the courses’ knowledge from university to real life. It basically makes a bridge so that it’s easy for you to transition when you graduate.”

Internships at Seaspan represent a brief window into the possibilities that a future career could hold for students, and especially for those who have never had the chance to be in a workplace, that is a thrilling prospect. Or, as put much simpler by Smita:

“I’m actually really excited for co-ops now. I had no idea it was going to be this fun.”