Hey everyone! I hope you all had as much fun last week as I did here in Madrid, Spain. As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I started my internship last Monday with Expanish and am proud to announce that I finished my first week as their study abroad intern! I got the opportunity to start projects and meet not just my bosses, but also members of the school’s different departments like social media, operations, and teachers. Not only that, but I was also able to settle my nerves and became a little more comfortable about doing my first internship in a foreign country.
Before I discussed what I did at Expanish last week, however, I thought it would be fun if I talked about the tourist activities I got to attend last week. Last Tuesday, I had the privilege to attend a flamenco dance workshop, with a show later in the day. In the workshop, a professional flamenco dancer taught me and the other students on the program the basics of flamenco. Although I committed errors, including being off-beat and coming in too early, the workshop was amazing and everyone had a blast. The performers mesmerized us during their performance, as we got to observe all the talent and passion they all were giving the audience.
After the flamenco workshop and show on Tuesday, I then got to witness the sports culture of the Madrileños. On Saturday night, the Champions League Final happened between Dortmund and Real Madrid. All day, fans filled the streets of Madrid with soccer jerseys to show their support for the team. Because of this once in a lifetime opportunity to be in Madrid during such a big game, I went to the center of the city, an area named Sol, to watch it. Real Madrid ended up winning the game 2-0 and the streets became flooded with fans; a sea of white jerseys, people, and flags filled Sol as everyone celebrated the team’s 15th UEFA Champions League Cup. This was something I will never forget for the rest of my life and Real Madrid earned themself another fan. Hala Madrid!
The final activity that I am going to discuss today was my trip to Cuenca. On Sunday, I took a day trip to go canyoning on the nearby Júcar River, where a group of people and I jumped off rocks, went down small waterfalls, and flowed through its currents. The canyon was beautiful and for me it was enchanting to take time out of the week and the city to be with nature. After we dried off and changed, we then traveled to Cuenca, which is a city about two hours away from Madrid. It is situated on a hill with valleys surrounding it and had the prettiest sights I have seen so far in Spain. The city is famous for having houses that hang off the side of the mountains and had old-style architecture that felt like we were in Don Quixote. This was my favorite activity and day of my time in Spain so far and I am excited to see what else this beautiful city has to offer.
With my activities now discussed, I want to discuss how I am managing my time at Expanish. Because I am working with our study abroad team, I spent half of my days researching study abroad programs in the United States. These universities are an untapped market that the company is looking to break into, so I have been investigating a database full of universities and discovering what study abroad programs they offer and if there are professors at that school that lead a faculty-led program to one of Expanish’s locations in Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Madrid, or Málaga, along with programs in Latin America or Europe in general. This project takes up around 50% of my time and work and then I spend the rest of my time working on projects for the other departments. Last week, I went with a school group from the University of South Alabama to take photos of them at their flamenco class for the social media team and worked on an interview with our Madrid school manager. This week, I am going to start researching and brainstorming a project proposal that our study abroad team could show to universities when trying to convince them to come to Expanish, take photos again of the University of South Alabama students on their tour of the center of Madrid, and also begin writing a blog that will go on the company’s website for customers to see before they come to the school or if they are interested in attending. I enjoyed working on these distinct types of projects last week because they are allowing me to enhance multiple different skills, see more of the city, and interact with different departments.
With all these different projects, it may appear difficult to be able to find prioritization for my tasks. However, I did not have this problem during my first week. My bosses have given me KPI’s to reach each week so that I have goals to work towards; these indicators have been targeting numbers of schools researched, faculty-led programs found, or due dates for me to submit rough drafts. They also informed me of how they would like me to spend time on each project. For example, they told me to spend half of my days working on the study abroad research project and then the rest on the other projects that I have, whether it was the interview, photos, proposals, or blogs. However, they did not force me to set my schedule in a certain way (for example, from 10-12 do this project), which I have enjoyed because it allows me to work in ways that are optimal for me and also allows me take breaks or move around between them if I get stuck or need a break.
