So tomorrow is the first day of my internship. The past week has been a fun one. I got to meet the rest of the Pitt students who are on the program, and we all went out together to check out the city. We also made some new friends from a couple of other schools. I like the city a lot. It’s a very cool place and there is always something to do. It’s also really easy to get around with the buses so that is a huge plus. A group of us also checked out a town a little south of here called Bray, which was a pretty cool little town. Being here is definitely making me more self-sufficient, which is good because that was one of the things that I wanted to improve myself on. I’ve gotten a lot of experience using the buses, and it’s all been pretty easy so far. One of the biggest differences that I have seen are in the grocery stores. A lot of the food here is not the same as it is back home. For one, their sausages are interesting. They look like ours do back home but they have a very different taste to them. I was also surprised to see that they do not refrigerate their eggs. Other than that though they’re pretty similar to home, although some stuff is a bit more expensive here then it is at home. Heinz ketchup for one. For the first week we didn’t have a pan to cook with, but thankfully now we do have one that we can use. As for my actual internship, I am working at a company called World Vision Ireland. They work with children in under-developed countries to help and get them a better life. I am working on the financial and accounting side of it. From what I’ve been told my main duties are going to be stuff like data entry, and I am also going to be helping with their month end bookings. I think for that part of the job, having some accounting experience is going to be a big help. I just took financial accounting in the spring so hopefully some of that is able to transfer over here and help me out when I need it. I am also going to be digitising files, making new copies of them, and will be sending various emails. It is going to be very important then that I am able to organize all of the files that I will be working with in an efficient manner, so that my coworkers will be able to get to them quickly and be able to find what they need easily. I think a key skill that I am going to need is the ability to communicate well with my coworkers. From what I saw during the interview, it is a pretty tight knit work environment. Its not a very big office, so everyone was talking to each other about their work projects and just talking in general, so I think that participating in the conversation is going to be a big part of making the most out of my internship. That could include asking questions, being engaged with my coworkers while I am at the office. For technical skills, my supervisor told me that it is going to be very important that I know how to use Excel. Fortunately for me, one of my classes this spring went over how to use Excel, so over the course of this week I am going to brush up on my skills so that I can be ready to go for Monday. I don’t actually start in the office until this coming Monday, as my company is pretty busy this week and they none of it is really anything I could help with. So I’m just working from home this week. I have some employee guidelines that I need to read over and sign and send back, along with some other company policies. I think another big thing is just going in with a good attitude. I assume that I’m definitely doing some busy work, so I think it’ll be important to remember that any kind of experience is good experience. My hope is that I am able to effectively work on any project they give me, so I guess I’ll see how that goes on Monday. But overall I am enjoying my time here and am ready to start my internship this coming Monday.