“Just to travel is rather boring, but to travel with a purpose is educational and exciting.” – Sargent Shriver
I wanted to start my blog off with the quote because I want to give you guys an inside look on my purpose for traveling and talk about the educational side of this journey. This is week has been a little challenging for me because this week is the week that I officially started my internship in Santiago. In just one week, I’ve already started to realize what I want and grow professionally. In this blog I will discuss my challenges with finding the right fit with my internship. I will also share some of my personal and professional goals that I have set for the summer. Finally, I will share some new things I have learned about Chile.
My Internships
Me in front of my jobMy initial internship did not challenge me. I was being assigned “baby” work, and not given real financial tasks. After four days of not being mentally challenged and ignored I ask for a relocation. The program, CIEE, acted fast with another placement interview the next day. I went to my interview and I love the task that he had set out for me, so I took the job. I am currently working with a company called ManPower. My supervisor is the head chef in charge, so he gives real tasks and allows me to come up with cool and inventive ideas. My supervisor and I have daily meetings to go over my progress and sometimes adds more work to keep me challenged and engaged. I am really enjoying this current internship and cannot wait to share my project and ideas with everyone.
One Short-term Goals
- To gain better adaptability skills. I have take all kinds of personal assessment tests (thanks to my dad, shout out to him) and a lot of them came up with my ability to adapt. So, I know I am adaptable but to be able to put it in action has been very eye-opening thus far. I know that this experience has already pushed my comfortably and it is nice to see myself in action.
- One way I plan on achieving this goal is by taking every opportunity to explore and do things I would not normally do at home. For example, instead of staying in my room to watch Netflix, I will find some event that is happening in the city or in a neighboring city and see to it that I attend.
- Another way I plan on achieving this goal is by letting go all of my first assumptions and to really evaluate a situation as it is. I plan on observing before I make assumptions, so I can try to learn the meaning behind things that may different than my cultural.
- To become a better leader. I believe that the attributes of of a leader would include: adaptability, good communication skills, and experience.
- I will achieve this goal by accomplishing my first goal
- I will also work on my communication while here. I feel like this is the best time to better my communication where their is a communication barrier. While I am learning Spanish, I am not yet fluent so I know if I can communicate well in this setting I will be set.
- I believe that traveling will give me experience others may not have, if they do not travel. This another way I will achieve this goal.
Cool Fact About Chile
In 2012 they passed a food labeling law. Which is: “The Health Ministry has ordered labels to be placed on food that is high in sugar, calories, sodium or saturated fat. It also bans the sale of any of those products in schools as well as advertisements for them that target children under age 14”. When I got here I wondered why everything said “sin azúcar” which translates to “without sugar”. I asked my host mom why everything had special labels on it and she explained this law to me. I think this law is really cool, and I am fascinated at how Chile is actually actively doing something about the obesity issue with their children. I feel like the United States should do something like this but the odds of that happening is really low. I love the idea because I know as Americans, it can be very easy to watch TV commercials and have cravings, that may lead to obesity. I do not think that at a young age, children should be dealing with obesity or diabetes. I think it is a good thing that Chile is censoring the certain advertisements and making companies watch their sugar, sodium, and calories input.
Once again,
Thank you for reading my blog! I’ll catch you guys next week. ADIOS!
Also, if anyone is looking for an internship with the company that helped fund my trip, here is a link to that:
https://fundforeducationabroad.org/job-opportunities/
Sites where I obtained my quotes from:
https://www.voanews.com/a/chile-seeks-to-fight-obesity-with-new-food-labeling-law/3395681.html