Lea is currently enrolled as an International Management student at a university of applied sciences in Dortmund, Germany. As of now she’s in her 6th semester and decided to go abroad to Barcelona between two semesters to do a mandatory internship.
Last Minute Organization
The special thing about Lea’s mediation: everything had to go very fast. “I registered at the end of December – for an Internship starting in January!” This circumstance meant that there were only two weeks to plan everything: she was definitely a last minute case!
On Friday, when she signed up on the website, she knew she wanted two things: to do an internship in the field of marketing and to do it in Barcelona. Her contact person at Sí-internships immediately started with the mediation on Monday, and just four days after she had signed up, her documents were sent to the company and she received the internship confirmation already a few hours later. Lea: “The service was great! My mediation only took two weeks in total and everything went absolutely perfect.”
But the mediation of the internship had just been the beginning of a big adventure. Right after she had received the internship confirmation everything got a little hectic: “I had to book flights and a hotel, pack my bags and organize everything one could need for a longer stay abroad”, Lea says, “and all of that within a couple of days!”
Already two days later Lea flew to Barcelona. When she arrived she was quite overwhelmed: “The city looked gigantic, way bigger than my hometown in Germany. And the weather surprised me as well: 15 degrees and sun instead of 2 degrees and rain.” In the beginning, she needed some time to get used to everything and felt a bit lonely. But after only a few days she met up with fellow interns who contacted her via the Sí-internships Whats App group and the feeling of being lonely was gone instantly.
About the Internship
The company Lea worked for is located a little outside of Barcelona. She commuted to work by train every day and thereby had the chance to see a lot of the Spanish landscape while getting to know Catalunya outside of Barcelona. Her internship company is the head office of a very big, international network of Marketing and Communication agencies with a smaller division in Barcelona and her working hours usually were from 10am – 2pm every day. Moreover, Lea’s tasks were very diverse: she, for example, took over the planning and structuring the company’s Social Media and developed strategies which will now also be taken over by the next interns. Moreover, she was encouraged to be very proactive about her ideas and also took care of computer related things like revising the email system.
In addition, she got along with her boss right from the start: “He’s a really great guy: honest and direct.” A thing she liked the most was that she didn’t just work there but also got a marketing lesson taught by her boss himself every single day. “I learned so much, not only about the company but also about the field of Marketing in general. This knowledge is especially useful since I have to write a Marketing exam for university right after I return to Germany.” Another highlight of the internship were the two office dogs. “My favourite one was Otto, our office mascot”, Lea tells enthusiastically. Overall, her expectations concerning the internship were definitely met: “I wanted to gain knowledge as well as experience and which I definitely did especially through the daily Marketing lessons.”
Living in Barcelona
Lea has already lived abroad a few times, for example in Ireland and the Netherlands. This time she wanted to go to a different place: Spain. “The atmosphere here is very relaxed and I also have the feeling that the people are taking more time for everything. That was kind of strange in the beginning because in the Northern countries everything is always very hectic and the people seem way more stressed.” That’s why Lea recommends to just let the city sink in. Even if you don’t have big plan to do sightseeing you still experience something new and different every single day.
Lea’s Conclusion
Overall, Lea can really recommend going abroad; not only to Barcelona but in general because it helps you to become more independent and definitely broadens your horizon. She is very happy to have made the decision to go abroad for her internship even though it was on short term and says that she would always do it again.
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