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.

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.

Achieving Professional Goals Through a Virtual Internship in Engineering #HogsAbroad (Virtually) in Germany

Blog post courtesy of USAC

Max Hedman, a computer engineering major at the University of Arkansas participated in USAC’s Global Perspectives Virtual Internship in Summer 2020. Hear how Max used this opportunity conducting research with a professor in Lüneburg, Germany to establish himself in his field of choice, network with professionals, and reach some pretty exciting career goals — all before graduation.

Why did you choose to participate in a virtual internship?

I was originally planning to study abroad out of country in order to strengthen my language skills. However, my plan was interrupted by COVID. I heard about USAC through my school’s study abroad office and I thought that taking a virtual internship would be a great way to participate in another culture while still improving my engineering skills.

How does a virtual internship fit into your academic and professional goals?

Academically, I was able to branch out to a different field of engineering that I had never worked with before, but had always interested me. The skills that I learned have already helped me out in my classes, and it gave me taste of what working in a professional setting is like.

What organization did you intern with and what is their primary function as a company?

I did not intern with an organization so much as with a professor. The purpose of the internship was more of a research internship with the end goal of generating novel ideas worthy of a paper. We performed tests using an advanced control scheme that we built in Matlab Simulink that simulated the pathing of our test robot, the Robotino.

What were your responsibilities? What did an average day look like for you?

First, as controls engineering was a new topic to me, I worked with the professor to learn the basics of control theory and in particular, SMC (Sliding Mode Control) and MPC (Model Predictive Control). My typical day during this phase of the internship would consist of educational zoom meetings and also self teaching of subjects like differential equations and linear algebra, math subjects that I had not taken in class, but would need for the project we would build.

Second, we built the program. The Simulink file that we started with was the results of the some of the professor’s work with his graduate students. This phase consisted of deriving equations which and then implementing them into Matlab Simulink. This was the most difficult phase as we had to root out and search for errors and figure ways to solve them when they became apparent. Most of what we built, we built while in a zoom meeting, so we could both see what was going on. This was a very satisfying part of the internship as many of the bugs we would find would take 10+ hours to solve. This was great as the problem solving feel of the entire thing is one of the reasons I want to be an engineer.

Third, once the program was mostly finished, barring several non-critical bugs, we started to put a lot of work into the paper. The professor and I both wrote different sections and made many edits until the end product was perfect and ready for submission into the conference.

Some of the work you did during your internship was published. Can you tell us more about that project?

The work that we published was a control scheme for an omnidirectional mobile robot. The control scheme used MPC (model predictive control) in order to generate an optimal trajectory that the robot would attempt to follow by using SMC (sliding mode control) which is a corrective, robust control strategy that compensates for error (both externally caused and natural physical limitations). The result is a low consumption scheme that can compensate for error and work around constraints (which can be implemented in the form of a cost function).

The paper has not been published yet as the conference is not until March, and papers are published in the conference proceedings, but we have submitted the paper and are waiting to hear if it will be accepted. The conference is tough to get into, but I feel we have a very strong subject for the paper, with a good simulation results to back it up.

Did you have to overcome any cultural obstacles during your internship (such as language barriers or different approaches to office culture)?

Due to the one on one nature of my internship, there were not too many cultural issues. The professor that I worked with was incredibly helpful and supportive.

One of my hobbies is languages, I like to learn all sorts of new words and learn their etymology, so it was very cool to learn some (very very little) Italian during the internship. I feel like breaking (even if ever so slightly) a language barrier makes the entire situation much more welcoming and I was glad to be able to expand my horizons to learn more about different cultures.

What are the benefits of a virtual internship?

The best part of a virtual internship is the convenience of it. I have found it far easier to schedule emergency meetings or to work parallelly (keeping in mind we worked on a computer simulation) in a virtual environment. I think this is a smaller point, but having experience working in a virtual environment will be quite important for my field as going into the future a lot of my work will be online, and I won’t always be able to meet clients in person.

What was the hardest part of your internship? How did you learn to overcome or manage this hurdle?

The hardest part of my internship had to be the building and testing of the program, although it was satisfying when we figured it out, many errors were very difficult to track down due to the size of the program. Additionally, because of the nature of simulating with multiple feedback loops, a small error in one spot may cause the program to completely crash or project error somewhere else.

What was your favorite part of your internship?

My favorite part was working with the professor, you can tell that he has a love for the subject and that he has a love for teaching. If I had to give a specific moment though, discovering that we had been using an incorrect constant and finally solving an error that had been in the program from the start was amazing. I remember it well because we solved it on a zoom call where we had a mini celebration afterwards. I remember saying “cross your fingers” before we tested it. Truly an awesome moment.

What is next for your academic career, and what are your professional plans for after graduation?

While I am still taking classes and working towards my major, I plan to take as many internships, study abroad opportunities, and co-ops as I can. I really want to gather a lot of experience so that I can better know what to expect (and do a better job) when I graduate. After graduation, I am hoping to work with a company (maybe even one that took an internship with) until I understand the field better and then I would like to start a cybersecurity consulting firm. I do have to admit though, while these are goals that I would like to work towards, a lot can change by the time I graduate, so I feel like the best plan is to look out for special opportunities and be ready and able to adapt if necessary. As I have been told before, sometimes the best engineers are the ones that can learn to climb the ladder sideways, branch out to different things.

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Learn more about USAC’s Global Perspectives virtual internship program.

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.

Advancing Career Exploration in Accra #HogsAbroad (Virtually) in Ghana

Honors College Fellow Megan Sattler, a math major from Bentonville, originally planned to spend the summer studying at the American College of Greece in Athens, but as with so many others, COVID-19 changed her plans. Honors College staff helped her land an internship with the Play and Learn Foundation, a non-profit in Ghana that empowers underserved youth. There, Megan helped to develop a new program, drawing on local connections to provide tools for career exploration.

Article from the Honors College blog

I wish that I were able to begin this blog with an entertaining anecdote of witnessing Jamestown’s famous boxing arenas or Accra’s highly symbolic monuments, but this sadly is not the case. I had landed an internship with a nonprofit based in Accra, Ghana, but the summer of quarantine caused this opportunity to be completely virtual. The University Studies Abroad Consortium (USAC) matched me with the Play and Learn Foundation (PAL), an organization that seeks to empower underserved Ghanaian youth to become leaders of their community through academic and athletic development. My role was to aid the development of a new program called Learning on the Go which aims to introduce kids to experiential learning and job shadowing opportunities within Accra.

Much of my work involved researching similar initiatives so as to further improve our current program proposal. I initially tried to tackle this project by coming up with strategic Google searches to produce promising results. It was difficult for me to find exactly what I was looking for this way, but I soon recognized that I had completely disregarded all the groups I had personal connections with. Despite this internship being my first professional endeavor, I realized that I knew many people that could be helpful towards my research. I was then able to contact my former school district, my current place of work, and the large corporation based in my hometown to gain insight on their academic programs. My limited experience in the professional world did not necessarily hinder my ability to be successful as I previously anticipated it would. I have gained a better recognition of connections that could prove useful in my future ventures, and I believe this awareness has also encouraged me to be more optimistic when going into new situations.

Through my research, I was able to create a partnership between the Play and Learn Foundation and the Myers-Briggs Company. The Myer-Briggs Company is now going to provide PAL with access to VitaNavis, a platform where students can explore vocational pathways. Before embarking on job shadowing opportunities, the kids will take VitaNavis’ SuperStrong Assessment to discover their top three occupational themes as determined by the RIASEC Model. These occupational themes will help educate the kids on careers that align with their interests. The platform can further be utilized to map an education path to a career by providing information about academic institutions as well as a feature for resume building. This personality/career assessment was a new idea I had proposed to my supervisor, and we hope that this addition will encourage students to make informed career decisions.

Though I was not able to gain any in-person experiences in Ghana, I was still able to learn about Ghanaian culture through my meetings with the Play and Learn Foundation. A cultural aspect that was difficult for me to navigate was the lack of deadlines. In fact, the program I was helping develop did not even have a target start date. It was stressful not knowing whether I was working too fast or too slow, but I was never criticized for my pace and eventually adjusted to this. My meetings also exhibited informalities in that my supervisor would dress very casually and be in and out of our meetings. I found that my organization was structured more lateral than hierarchical due to their leadership style, emphasizing consideration and sensitivity for everybody. This was very different from the style of corporate America, but I appreciated Ghana’s easygoing mentality.

Megan featured on PAL’s intern page.

I thoroughly enjoyed carrying out my internship through USAC, and I would highly recommend virtual internship seekers to look into their Global Perspectives Virtual Internship Program. In addition to my supervisor at the Play and Learn Foundation, USAC provided me with a couple of other mentors who were readily available for any means of support. USAC also complemented my internship with weekly seminar sessions that allowed me to deepen my understanding of my professional and cultural experiences. These seminars were completed by other students engaging in various virtual internship programs, granting me even more peers offering assistance and encouragement. Though I did not gain the international experience I thought I would when I originally planned to study abroad, this virtual internship still brought professional and cultural insights that further developed my character.

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This summer, although the COVID-19 pandemic suspended study abroad programs, students participated in a Study Abroad and Honors College pilot program to complete virtual international internships.

Mathematics major Megan Sattler completed a virtual international internship in Social Welfare with Play and Learn (an NGO based in Ghana) through USAC (University Studies Abroad Consortium), earning direct U of A credit and gaining valuable work experience. Virtual interns working with NGOs and other organizations on social service projects contribute to grant proposals and other fundraising activities, conduct research relevant to projects or campaigns of the organization, project management, and data entry and analysis.

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.

Virtual Internship in Public Health #HogsAbroad (Virtually) in Kenya

Honors College Fellow Meghana Chithirala, a pre-med junior double majoring in chemistry/biochemistry and economics, planned to spend the summer polishing her French skills in Perpignan, France –– but the COVID-19 pandemic forced a change in plans. She was one of the first honors students to sign up for a virtual international internship. Rotations through the HIV Clinic and pediatrics, critical care and neonatal units at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kisamu, Kenya, proved to be an eye-opening introduction to public health – and the benefits of online internships.

Article from the Honors College blog

For the past year or so, I had been preparing to study abroad in France this summer. I often imagined myself exploring the beaches of Perpignan, eating all the pasta my stomach could handle, and being fully immersed in the language and culture. Unfortunately, the global spread of the coronavirus quickly dissolved those plans, and I was applying to the SIT Kenya: Virtual Internship in Public Health in the Tropics program thanks to an email Chelsea Hodge sent out to honors students before I knew it. While I was ready for a summer revolving around my French minor, I was excited to make the most out of my summer by focusing on my goal to enter the medical field one day.

This woman used a baby doll to demonstrate how to perform a physical examination.

I had many questions going into the program, especially about how much I would be able to learn through a screen. Couldn’t possibly be that much, right? However, I was quickly proven wrong. I was exposed to a multitude of issues in the Kenyan health care system and how third-world countries are trying to utilize their limited resources efficiently in the first week alone. Over the course of the internship, I rotated between the pediatrics unit, critical care unit, HIV clinic, and neonatal unit at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in Kisumu, Kenya. I have learned about the legal concerns and social issues when taking care of children in Kenya, how to collect a patient history and perform a physical examination for both children and adults, and gained insight on the diagnosis of prevalent illnesses in the tropics through symptoms and signs. Highlights include being able to examine case studies of a patient with sickle cell disease to obtain a real-life example of appropriately-filled-out hospital forms and nursing care plans, and a patient with HIV who was experiencing treatment failure for unknown reasons. These case studies made me feel like I was in the hospital in person, working in the different departments, instead of participating in the internship virtually.

Even though I was thousands of miles away, the expectations placed on me were not lowered by any means. I was often quizzed on previous topics, given readings to discuss, and assigned topics to research. The amount of work this internship required was definitely not expected, which was initially stressful as I was not sure I would be able to juggle it with my other responsibilities. However, an honest interest in what I had been learning kept me motivated to stay on top of everything, even if that meant I had to wake up at 6:00 a.m. every day due to the time difference.

Sure, there are challenges associated with virtual learning, such as technical glitches, but the Internet provided many advantages to amplify my overall experience. I was able to swiftly research topics as they were being talked about or record important sessions to rewatch them at a later time if necessary. I was not able to have an immersive cultural experience like I would have if I was physically in Kenya, but I was able to pick up on some Swahili and learn about the environment through the staff’s perspective and videos. This internship was honestly one of the greatest opportunities I had been given, and a part of me is kind of glad my France study abroad program was postponed until next summer.

This screenshot shows online discussion of gender-based violence in Africa. Chithirala is pictured at bottom right.

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This summer, although the COVID-19 pandemic suspended study abroad programs, students participated in a Study Abroad and Honors College pilot program to complete virtual international internships.

Chemistry major Meghana Chithirala completed a virtual international internship through SIT (the School for International Training), earning direct U of A credit and gaining valuable work experience. Interns with the SIT program based in Kenya complete a five weeks placement at Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI)/Centers for Disease Control (CDC) or other organizations working on public health related issues in Kisumu, deepening knowledge of public health promotion and management in the tropics. Learn more about Meghana's Virtual Internship in Public Health in the Tropics in Kenya. 

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.