A Life Changing Experience: Getting an Internship in Virtual Spain #MondayMotivation

Objective 1
At the beginning of the semester I gave myself three learning objectives and created a plan that I would implement in order to meet these objectives. My first objective was to be able to apply business concepts and theories to real-world decision-making. My action plan included the use of different tasks and assignments to better and amplify my business concepts and keeping a journal, as I acquired new business concepts and theories, so that I can use them later on in my professional life. I think that being part of this virtual internship really exposed me to new ways to make important decisions regarding a real company, and it will serve for me as a learning and hands-on experience to be able to apply it to upcoming life events. I was able to acquire a plethora of marketing terminology and business terms by engaging with my supervisors and utilizing these terms frequently to refer to my tasks and assignments. My supervisors urged me to use the correct terminology when presenting my ideas and projects to them, and I realize that this allowed me to become familiar and comfortable with using business concepts in a real-world. After constantly utilizing these business concepts around my supervisors I can confidently say that I can use this terminology when needed in my professional and any real-world decision-making setting.

Objective 2
My second objective was to be able to give a full presentation or create a project fully in Spanish. My action plan included keeping a document with all the new Spanish words that I learned throughout my internship and then applying that vocabulary to my projects and presentation. Although, it was a bit difficult to get used to at first this experience was so great because I was able to engage in not only conversation but utilize professional terminology in Spanish as well. I truly believe that being able to receive feedback in Spanish helped me better my overall use of the language, and it also introduced me to a setting where my native language was used professionally. The experience of being able to express myself in both languages was so wonderful and being able to incorporate my first language in the business world is something that I have always looked forward to. Expressing my ideas and presenting them in Spanish was like a dream come true, and it is something

 

Objective 3
My third objective was to acquire more cultural knowledge about Spain and its traditions. It was so incredible to have been able to experience a whole country virtually. It was certainly a different experience, but I also feel like this was a great way to get a grasp about Spain and its people and traditions. The opportunity of being part of the weekly cultural debrief sessions was such a great experience, and I believe that this gave me a closer look about Spain and its culture by talking to Spaniards and asking them questions pertaining to their culture, custom and beliefs, Being able to listen to their cultural experiences an learning about their background opened my eyes to what culture in Spain is really like. I believe that working closely with Buddy Service, which is located in Spain permitted me to learn about its culture and customs through the people that interacted with virtually. I firmly believe that learning about different cultures is super important, and I am so grateful that I got to do this from the commodity of my home.

A Life Changing Experience
I think that we often times oversee that hardships that people with disabilities experience while traveling. Traveling is something that is already so stressful, and through this assignment I learned that people with disabilities don’t receive enough attention or help when traveling. I believe that this assignment is what truly made me fall in love with Buddy Service and what it stands for. I realize that writing reports doesn’t exactly have to do with digital marketing at all but at the same time this is the of the message that I was assigned to get across. After reading various articles about how inaccessible traveling is for disabled people, I decided to always try my best in all of my assignments to help make a difference. I became super passionate and involved in making infographics and creating the best social media posts in an effort to create awareness for disabled travelers. I think that this is an important topic that should be highlighted everywhere. I realized that I wanted more than getting an internship experience, I wanted to help Buddy Service promote their services, so that travelers with disabilities can receive the attention and care that they deserve. This experience made me realize that the goal behind Fabian’s vision was so beautiful, and I am so thankful that I was given the opportunity to help make it a reality.

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Lizbeth Martinez, a senior International Business major participated in CISAbroad's virtual internship program in Barcelona in Fall 2020. Read more from Liz at https://lizinvirtualspain.wordpress.com/

Interested in pursuing a virtual international internship? This innovative program allows students to put accessibility and mobility concerns aside to develop meaningful professional connections with international companies, NGOs, health and education organizations, and so on. Although it’s not a substitute for a traditional on-site experience, these programs provide a project-based pathway for students to connect with international organizations. Learn more about options to internationalize your degree plan by adding a virtual international internship to your semester.

Take Hold of Opportunities #StudyAbroadDay #HogsAbroad

For the Fall 2020 semester at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, it was an extremely difficult time to study abroad due to the COVID-19 pandemic but I was still able to experience all you can eat kbbq, a train to Busan, cafe culture, and much more even with restrictions. I learned to take hold of opportunities because there's so much I am capable of if I can make it happen.

In Hangzhou in Summer 2018, I was able to practice my Chinese language skills in a much more intensive and useful environment on topics like ordering food, having normal conversations with college students, etc. I was able to try the spiciest thing I've had in my life with Hot Pot in Chengdu, Sichuan.

--Kelvin Feng, class of 2021 (Mathematical Sciences), Summer 2018 in China and Fall 2020 in South Korea

Learn more about Kelvin's Faculty-Led: Intensive Mandarin language & culture program.

Learn more about Kelvin's USAC program in South Korea.

You can start planning your adventure abroad today! Dive in to our Explore page at https://studyabroad.uark.edu/explore/index.php, and start your program search at http://studyabroad.uark.edu/search/

A Passion for Digital Marketing: Getting an Internship in Virtual Spain

#GirlBoss

I take immense pride in being a Latina woman pursuing a career in the business world. I aspire to inspire those around me, specifically young first-generation Latinas that are setting their sight on pursuing a higher education. I firmly believe that if I acquire the privilege of succeeding in the business world as a minority, I will be able to help those around me achieve their goals and dreams. I am truly passionate about bettering myself in all aspects, so that I can help those in need in the near future. I am excited to embark in my life journey and inspire other young girls that might feel lost or afraid because I was once just like them. Serving as an inspiration, life mentor and friend is something that I care about with all of my heart and soul, and I believe that my supervisors inspired me to make this a priority. I am learning to better and become the best version of myself each day so that I can make a positive and everlasting impact on those around me. Being part of the Buddy Service team touched my heart and it made me think in a more profound way. This overall experience made me realize that it is important to help others and that being passionate in your goals is important in order to be able and assist others in the future.

What is Buddy Service?

Buddy Service is a travel cycle management for travelers who experience disabilities. The concept is based on four principles that create a pertinent service for specific needs. The four concepts are: enable, encourage, engage, and ensure. Buddy Service offers three types of on-site services: individual care, technical care and activity care. What made me fall in love with this company was the passion that everyone expresses for advocating and spreading awareness of making traveling accessible for people with disabilities. These concepts, on-site services and passion for making the world more diverse and inclusive are what make Buddy Service stand out from other traveling cycle management providers.

Passion for Digital Marketing

I had such an amazing experience working for Buddy Service under the supervision, guidance and help of both Fabian and Añiol. I truly feel like I learned and acquired so much knowledge pertaining to my career goals through the duration of this eight-week long internship. I believe that this experience will allow me to reach my career goals because of the experience and knowledge that I acquired through the various assignments that I completed. I realized that digital marketing is something that I genuinely enjoy doing, and I definitely want to make this my career path. I have only great things to say about Buddy Service and the genuine people behind it. I feel so thankful for the opportunity of working alongside the genuine and resourceful people who created this service for people with disabilities, a group often times overseen by diversity and inclusion enforcers. Being able to work alongside the Buddy Service team was an experience that changed my life forever.

A closer look into my day as an intern for Buddy Service

My role with Buddy Service was “Digital Marketing Manager.” I was under the supervision of Fabian Kraemer, the CEO of Buddy Service and also Añiol Carreras, the digital product expert. My internship consisted of me trying to expose Buddy Service through social media and showcase their services and what they stand for. I was assigned many tasks and assignments that pertained to digital marketing and even entrepreneurship. One of my biggest, and perhaps most important assignment was to create a new Instagram page for Buddy Service. My goal was to create meaningful brand awareness through social media engagement by creating meaningful posts and infographics, I found myself working at least thirty hours a week on creating infographics, making Instagram posts, generating the perfect captions, reading and doing research about accessible tourism, and finding the perfect hashtags to help promote Buddy Service.

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Lizbeth Martinez, a senior International Business major participated in CISAbroad's virtual internship program in Barcelona in Fall 2020. Read more from Liz at https://lizinvirtualspain.wordpress.com/

Interested in pursuing a virtual international internship? This innovative program allows students to put accessibility and mobility concerns aside to develop meaningful professional connections with international companies, NGOs, health and education organizations, and so on. Although it’s not a substitute for a traditional on-site experience, these programs provide a project-based pathway for students to connect with international organizations. Learn more about options to internationalize your degree plan by adding a virtual international internship to your semester.

International Diplomacy in Virtual South Africa

It was official. My St. Petersburg, Russia study abroad plans to polish my language studies and immerse myself into the culture for my career pursuits were officially canned. As the alarm bells chimed for the COVID-19 travel closings, I knew that my future aspirations to study abroad were as far from me as the shores of the Baltic Sea. But I was not deterred.

Equipped with the knowledge that I was only in my third year and that I could afford to bide my time until the storm had passed, I decided to take the initiative to venture out into the unknown. I figured that while everyone was adjusting their plans, that perhaps I could take the opportunity to try replacing my Russian travel arrangements with something just as beneficial to my international mediation pursuits. My eventual decision would take me sailing across some of the most frightening waters of my academic career into an unchartered territory that caused many a bold undergraduate to quake with fear: online internships.

Now where would one who is versed in Eastern European studies find a program suited for a career in international mediation? South Africa, of course! It was entirely unexpected. But as soon as the announcement fell into my inbox saying that positions for SIT’s brand-new virtual internship in diplomacy, conflict resolution, and international relations were open, I had to apply. But wait, this is in South Africa. Did I know anything about South Africa? …No. Did I find any other kinds of internships that fit so neatly into my academic and career plans as this one? …Also no. So I signed up, and I got in!

What settled some of my anxious nerves at the program’s outset was the knowledge that I, along with a small team of students, would be given a two-week orientation and a personalized crash-course of South African history. What I had not anticipated was the flexibility of the program and how spread out our entire team was. Not only were the program supervisors situated in their headquarters in Durban, South Africa, but many of my colleagues were located on opposite sides of the US and in other countries. Ooh, I’d have to get good at time zone math really quick! Our weekly synchronous sessions were all recorded and occurred at the convenience of both the supervisors and the students, so there was usually a lot of juggling on everyone’s part to make sure we could all be there and awake for the day’s lesson.

Despite our separation from one another over the virtual medium, the group’s dynamic was fantastic! We established an easy communications network via WhatsApp and email which allowed for us to help one another with our assignments and support each other during the rough seasons of the semester. The advisors always made themselves available for feedback and consultation, and the material we covered within a few weeks had given us the context needed to approach our semester-long task: the summary transcription of nearly 75 intergenerational dialogues across the world.

This semester as the world’s plans ground to a halt and nations had to prioritize the management of the pandemic, the non-government organization of ACCORD (the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes) decided to momentarily turn its attention away from African politics and focus on helping its partners in the UN. We as interns for SIT, were assigned to aid ACCORD in their Global Peace project. This project would encompass a series of intergenerational discussions conducted by prominent leaders and representatives of the youth across the world to find practical solutions to global issues. Our group was tasked reviewing, analyzing, and transcribing summaries of the most salient points drawn from these dialogues for the UN Secretary General’s viewing.

This was some of the most intellectually stimulating and interesting work I had ever undertaken thus far. Listening in on these dialogue sessions and figuring out how to tailor their points for positive action became one of my new favorite academic challenges. I persevered through the program, encouraged in the knowledge that what I was doing had an impact on the processes of peace in the UN. I got to hear discussions from nations including Namibia, Honduras, and Iran, all focused on finding ways to make the future a better place. Despite the variety of participating nations, there was a unanimous call for action to establish youth representation in government, encourage entrepreneurial education, and to replace corrupt institutions.

This internship allowed me to interact with the international community in a way that greatly improved my communication and writing skills. Although the internship work was conducted completely virtually, it significantly broadened my horizons, contributed to my international experiences, and allowed me to perceive the world in a way that enabled me to work more effectively in the processes of conflict resolution, diplomacy, and mediation. I couldn’t recommend a better program to those considering work in international relations. The patience of the supervisors and their commitment to helping students learn how to conduct international operations of peace surpassed that of anything I had found in the states.

I would encourage all students to never give up on exploring the different paths to achieving their goals. Study abroad may have been halted by a pandemic, but the internship I had decided to take a chance on ended up showing me more avenues to the kind of work I wanted to go into than what I had expected. I implore the students who are facing obstacles to their aspirations to take the initiative to find the hidden paths that lead to their goals. If it’s worth a try, then it’s worth your all.

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Amy McCampbell, a junior International & Global Studies major participated in SIT's virtual internship in South Africa: Diplomacy, Conflict Resolution & International Relations in Fall 2020. Learn more about SIT's virtual internships.

Interested in pursuing a virtual international internship? This innovative program allows students to put accessibility and mobility concerns aside to develop meaningful professional connections with international companies, NGOs, health and education organizations, and so on. Although it’s not a substitute for a traditional on-site experience, these programs provide a project-based pathway for students to connect with international organizations. Learn more about options to internationalize your degree plan by adding a virtual international internship to your semester.