From what I’ve grown up seeing, I mainly believe that America has a very specific sense of being successful in societal terms. One if not the most common way of showing success in the U.S. is by making a lot of money at your job. You can be considered successful if you have an amazing job and you can live the life you want exactly as you want to. America has a very strong focus on this so depending on the amount of money you make from your job, whether or not it’s your passion, you aren’t often considered successful if you don’t make much as success is most often defined by this criteria. When it comes to success in France, one’s financial status in society doesn’t really matter. Most people don’t care what you have, but instead what you can do. Quality of character here is much more valued than any monetary gain, so success is often based on the life you live in relation to others. Being able to enjoy yourself outside of work is also valued in terms of success, so while I’ve focused a lot on my work, it’s been nice to take my breaks and see the sights during my time here, such as my lovely weekend to Nice where I was able to truly enjoy myself. My internship is based in childcare, so it is quite different from my previous internship of cooking classes. However, I do have a lot of experience already working with kids, as I used to work for several years in a summer camp/after school program, very similar to my current internship. To be successful in working with kids, the obvious rule of thumb is that no matter how hard you work it is entirely dependent on how you interact with the kids that shows your quality of character and worth as an employee. Working with kids is incredibly stressful and it’s imperative that you continue to keep a level head in any given situation. Whether it be with a child who got hurt or they aren’t following the rules you have to keep calm and speak . Even just acting this way makes it so the kids respect you more, who are then more likely to listen to you most of the time. In this field, this is the most important thing you could focus on as the main goal is to make sure that the kids feel respected, are safe, and have fun all at once. Another important aspect is being able to put forth more than just supervising the children. The daily maintenance of the center is integral to make sure that the center runs smoothly, that everything is very organized to help make things easier for future activities, and to keep everything clean for the children and staff. Multitasking such as this shows that you can focus on many things at once. When you work with kids your attention is pulled every which way so being able to keep everything in mind at once with watching kids and cleaning up and preparing activities and so on and so forth are difficult to juggle all together. Being able to put all of this together into one cohesive workday is a sign of a successful and effective employee at any childcare center. Compared to U.S. styles of taking care of children, the French are very similar in how they interact with the children. I haven’t been able to see any major differences in how this facility compares to my previous employer but having similar points does help with some of the transferable skills I had been working on. Efficiency and camaraderie are some of the most important aspects of being a successful employee in France and I think I can say confidently that working with people from so many different backgrounds has greatly improved how I’m able to . Even with my limited time at my initial internship I was able to experience a bit how these two aspects go together to make someone successful in the workplace. While it was stressful, changing internships gave me even more insight into different fields. With my supervisors and becoming more comfortable at my internship, I’m happy to say that I finally feel that I’ve been able to improve some of the skills that I had planned on working on while I’ve been in France. Other skills such as professionalism and work ethic are amazing technical skills to have that only further my role as a ‘successful” employee. Things that just now seem natural such as multitasking with the children and cleaning are met by compliments by my supervisors who are almost surprised with how “dynamic” I am compared to others. I’ve become very grateful for my time here and the experience I’ve gotten with the variety of projects at Pari-Grandir and I’m glad to have made so many connections during my time here in Paris.