After officially finishing my first week of work, I am finally starting to feel settled here in Dublin. My internship thus far has been going very well and I feel as if I’m beginning to get acclimated to my office environment. I work in what would be considered a small office in America, but is an average size here in Ireland. There are about 15 employees at my company, including myself. In america this would be considered a very small company, however I have come to learn that it is very uncommon to have a company with more than 30 employees here in Dublin.

Centralis is a corporate outsourcing firm, which essentially means that they provide all different types of services for both individuals and corporations all over the world. Currently they have around 90 clients, and I have already begun assisting my supervisor with tasks relating not only to Centralis themselves, but also to their clients. I am extremely excited about the experience I am gaining in my field and I feel it my internship is an excellent stepping stone for my experiences post graduation.

My internship office is located very close to other financial and consulting firms. This sector tends to be more formal than those of other students I have talked too. Both the dress and work environment are very professional, however the people are still extremely friendly and interested in learning about me and chatting about all sorts of topics.

Before starting work I had been told that I would likely get teased in a friendly way by my coworkers, which is considered “slagging”. I haven’t really experienced slagging in the same way I was warned about it. My coworkers are mostly just interested in asking me questions about life in America. On my third day in the office I explained what Greek Life at US universities was, and I was surprised to hear that most of my co-workers had no idea what a fraternity or sorority was. We also discussed college or “university” and how much different it is, i.e. most people in Dublin commute to school and the it only costs about 2,000 Euros a year in tuition.

All in all my internship experience has been a very positive one and I look forward to gaining more experience in my field over the coming weeks!