Finally Starting My Internship & Visiting Friends in Ireland (Week 10)

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Noemi Guzman

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Noemi Guzman

<i>"Hello" in your host country's language:</i> Hello <i>Home Institution (your U.S. University/College):</i> College of Saint Benedict <i>Expected graduation year:</i> 2023 <i>Destination city & country:</i> London, England <i>Program provider:</i> FIE <i>Major/minor:</i> Social Science / Secondary Education & Political Science <i>Demographics:</i> Hispanic/Latinx, First-Generation College Student, LGBTQ+ <i>Future career aspirations:</i> I aspire to be a 7th grade civics teacher! <i>Top 3 goals for your time abroad:</i> Be involved in my community; Try a new dish; Develop a global mindset

This week began with attending my British Life and Cultures class. We had class and spoke about our final project coming up. I had not realised how little time we have left. I do not want to start thinking about study abroad ending but it is something that is going to happen. This final project is going to be on any British person in history who has had some sort of impact on the world. Since my focus in school is in politics, I thought it would be suiting for me to write about Margaret Thatcher. I am looking forward to doing research on her but I am dreading it as it is going to be difficult to balance two classes along with my internship.

My second class of the week was my internship class. We spoke more about our experiences at our internships and reviewing our homework. We also began to prepare for our final assignment which I was grateful to have time for.

The next part of my week was me actually starting my internship. I did not find out till the day of but my internship is going to be for the most part all online. I am not too thrilled about it but I am happy with what I am assigned to be working on. After speaking to my supervisor, I found out that during my time at the internship I will be writing articles for their website. I made it clear to my supervisor that I was very passionate about writing and that I enjoyed doing research which is why I am happy with the tasks that I was given. For the first day of my internship I was given the task of coming up with ideas for what I would like to write for the website. One of my first ideas was to write a piece for women‘s history month and leading lbt figures. I created a list of things that I was interested in and then met with my supervisor to discuss them. The rest of my time working that day was to take a look at their website and take note of the writing style and tone being used. I also began to do a little bit of research on women’s history month and how it came to be.

My next two days of internship revolved around writing my first piece for the website. Since I get very nervous about finding proper sources, it honestly took me a really long time to find information I felt was reliable. I did not know who to write about for this piece. I knew that since this was a UK charity that it would be important for me to include British figures. Unfortunately, I struggled with this for a while. My first draft didn’t really include and women from the UK and my supervisor let me know that it would be best to add some. I took the last day of the week to do research on British women figures that made an impact. After finding the women that I wanted to write about, I finalised my fact sheet and uploaded it to our website after my supervisor approved the final look.

I ended the week by visiting friends who are currently studying abroad in Cork, Ireland. I enjoyed being able to visit a different country and be a part of their culture. It was very beautiful and got the opportunity to visit Blarney castle.

This week was very interesting and I was very happy to start my internship. I learned a lot about what I was going to be doing at my internship and got a feel for what I was going to be doing there. I am very much looking forward to learning and growing with the company! I was also happy with my trip to Ireland and what I was able to see. I learned more about a culture and enjoyed to see what Gaelic football is! Getting the chance to learn more about a culture is always amazing and I appreciate every chance I get to do so.