Unfortunately my time in Ireland has come to an end and I am writing this blog post back in Pennsylvania. Overall, I feel as though while the first few weeks went by slowly, the last month of my internship really flew by. Being in Ireland was an experience unlike anything I had previously done, as it was my first time living in or even being to a European country. Although everyone I interacted with in Ireland spoke English, it was still very apparent that I was not in America. There were people in Ireland from all over the world and I was able to have some interactions with French and Spanish individuals as well due to Ireland being a popular European travel destination in the summer. All of the small differences I had to adjust to such as using the Euro for currency or seeing cars drive on the opposite side of the road I will now need to adjust back to now that I am home (this will probably be a bit less difficult than my original transition). While I am sure I will enjoy my time at home before school starts, I will definitely miss Ireland as well.

My final week at my internship at Dublin City University was fairly routine. My intern colleagues and I were able to complete the double blinded coding for our Irish government fraud index back to 1972. Originally my bosses were unsure if we would have the time to double blind all of the years we completed, so it was satisfying to exceed their expectations. My bosses were able to make this internship great for me, as they allowed me to work in a stress free environment. They were also kind enough to provide me the gift of a Dublin City University sweatshirt on my last day of work and treated myself and my fellow interns to lunch. It was nice to discuss my time in Ireland with them during this lunch, and they reflected on how grateful they were for our hard work. They also offered to offer to write me a letter of recommendation for a future job or application if I need to, which is useful to know. Perhaps I will take them up on this offer when applying to jobs this year at school. While the work I did at Dublin City University was tedious at times, it was definitely a great overall experience at I will likely soon miss my time there along with my fellow interns.

I would say that I have always been pretty good at understanding the context of a situation. As someone who likes to asses a situation before acting, this has been a skill I have had developed for quite some time. As a foreigner in a new country, I was sure to not try to presume that I know too much about my surroundings. I would assume that locals would be more inclined to help someone who is humble than a braggadocios individual who acts above others. This is generally the case in America as well. When relating to other locals in Ireland, the majority of them are very talkative and informal, which establishes the context that they fine with me communicating in the same way with them. In a work context, I simply evaluated what my bosses expected of me in the workplace. They were fine with me taking breaks from my work when I wished within reason and to take off for lunch at the time of my choosing. As a result, this established a fairly relaxed and not overly formal workplace. This was reinforced throughout our conversations over the course of the internship which were sometimes personal and sometimes about work.

Feedback for my work during my internship was usually provided verbally and occasionally through email. I found this method to be very effective, as verbal communication is very direct and a person’s tone can easily be interpreted. Additionally verbal feedback allows one to ask clarifying questions immediately as opposed to having to wait around for a response on email. Luckily the majority of the feedback I received was of the positive variety. When my bosses did provide “negative feedback” it was usually over a slight error in coding and they were very polite with their criticism. In the future I would hope that my employer would give me direct and honest verbal feedback. Feedback that is vague or beats around the bush could lead to not improving my work or interpreting something the wrong way.