If you are interested in doing your internship abroad, but feel a bit unsure of that, you are in a right place!
In this blog post I will tell you about my own experience of doing it and I will also give you a provide tips and guidance on how to manage that. I will focuse on the time on spent abroad and my own tips, because from our school you will get simple instructions for everything else.
Where to start?
First of all, finding a place. When i decided to go abroad for me it was clear that i wanted to go to Spain because I did already had interest in visiting there and had no chance to go earlier. But if you have no idea where to go or that not even really matter for you, let’s start by contacting your teacher who is responsibility of international internships.
I did found my place by using Facebook groups. I was lucky, because the company where I was did contact straight to me after I published my post.
So finding the place is your responsibility. From our school you can have useful links and tips on where to start looking.
Log in to the workplace called “Restonomiharjoittelu” and you will find everything you need to know to start your adventure.
Here is a link to our school website to check if you are interested: Erasmus+ training exchange instructions (lapinamk.fi)
Ready to go?
Here is a short checklist to help you notice all the important things:
- Are all the necessary documents filled?
- Remember also to fill all the necessary documents of getting grants.
- Where are you going to stay?
- Do you have also enough own money?
- Book your flights early enough to safe money.
- Plan a budget.
Finding accommodation can be challenging and surprisingly expensive. I recommend asking if there are others interested in going. Especially with a roommate, finding accommodation becomes easier when costs can be shared. This is how many students operate in Finland as well.
To find a place to stay, Facebook groups also a good place to start asking. Spain was kinda easy, because it is full of Finnish people and the Finnish community is huge. I left with two people from our school and we founded our accommodation on Airbnb.
We lived in Benalmádena, in the middle of Costa del Sol, Andalucía.
Remember to consider the location of your accommodation and the availability of public transportation. This helps you to moving for work and other travel needs. In our case public transportations was super important and good location made our moving easy.
Being abroad
Alright, finally everything is ready and the adventure can start!
Actually all the hard parts are already done before your trip. Now it’s time to enjoy the journey and start learning new things. To ease the start of your work, it’s advisable to familiarize yourself in advance with the work culture and other aspects of the destination country. During the internship exchange, keeping a journal of your working hours and tasks is recommended, making it easy to write the final report after the internship.
Remember to keep an open mind, enjoy your time, and experience as much as you can. Time flies, and before you know it, your internship will be coming to an end.
In case of any issues, communication with the school primarily takes place through email. In my entire time, there was no need for communication with the school or the responsible teacher, so there was no contact during the entire two months.
If you plan to study and complete courses at the same time with your internship, at least for us, it worked smoothly with online studies.
So, if you are at all interested in trying an internship or exchange abroad, I highly recommend seizing the opportunity. You can never have too many new experiences, lessons, and memories!
Just go for it!
Thank you for reading and you are free to leave comments or questions for me.