As part of my time abroad I have been given the opportunity to participate in an internship. I am interning at SomewhereNew which arranges day and weekend trips for internationals students and study abroad students. They set up tours all over Europe and day trips to Stonehenge and Bath, Oxford, Brighton, and many other places. I work in the accounting and finance department where I assist in processing and reconciling their accounts and bank statements.

When I first arrived at my internship I was very surprised to see how small the company was. The company has approximately six people that work there and because the office layout is very small a handful of people work from home, including the head accounting person that I work with. Instead of having him in the office, he works from home and I have to call him rather than talk to him in person. This can be difficult at times, but I think it is interesting and definitely different from a normal workplace that I am used to.

When I first started interning it took some time to adjust to the new environment. It definitely took a little time to form a relationship with the people in my office, but within the first couple of weeks it became less awkward for me. As I was working on projects with different people in the accounting and finance department I was able to develop a relationship with the people that I work with. In addition to this, I did not feel like I was going to be doing much with the tasks I was given during the first couple weeks working there. I was doing very simple tasks like filing and inputting invoices, but as the program continued I was given more in depth projects.

Overall, my internship experience has been very positive and I have learned a lot. I was able to learn how to use QuickBooks (the accounting system used at SomewhereNew) and develop other important skills. In addition to this and most importantly, I have grown as a person studying and working abroad. I consider myself very lucky to have had this opportunity and it will definitely have a great impact on my professional career.