I can’t believe we’re on week three!

I feel like these past three weeks have flown by. This past week I didn’t do much during the actual work week as I was pretty tired every day after work. On Tuesday we went to a beer garden with some of the other students in the program, but besides that my after work activities included stopping at the grocery store, going for a run, and then relaxing back at the hotel. On my runs I’m able to run through Tiergarten, which is smack dab in the middle of Berlin and surrounds the Victory Column and I get to run past the Brandenburger Tor every time. It’s pretty cool to casually run past these historical landmarks every day, and I definitely make sure to stop and appreciate them.

This weekend me and my friend took a bus to Prague, which was such a fun time and definitely eventful. We didn’t have the best of luck, as we missed our bus there and back, and a bag was lost, but we didn’t let it ruin our time and got to see pretty much the whole city, as well as enjoyed the nightlife. We got there late Friday night, but on Saturday we walked up to the castle, which definitely racked up our steps for that day. We went up to the top of one of the towers in the cathedral, which was a nearly 300 step climb, but definitely worth the view. We were staying very close to the city center, so we passed the astrological clock and got to see all of the amazing architecture. We had an interesting day on Sunday to say the least, but we got back to Berlin, so that’s all that matters.

This past week at my internship was pretty great. I feel like I got a good handle of the tasks that I was expected to complete, and a good understanding of what my coworkers are doing on a day to day basis. My job tasks include booking bank confirmations to record rent and similar payments made by tenants, and now I’m being taught how to clear the customer accounts, which is basically just a place where the company stores outstanding balances until a payment is made my the tenant. It’s interesting because I’ve learned about these accounts in my courses at school, so it’s useful to see them be applied in a real business setting. My first week, it felt like I was unsure of everything, from what time to be in, to what I should be doing, but now It feels good to have a little more confidence in my role at the company.

During the week, there was a team dinner that one of my coworkers earned, and so I got to join them and get to know the people I’m working with a little bit better. It was nice to be able to speak to them in a more casual setting and develop those relationships. I also met another younger person who doesn’t speak German, so we bonded over that a little bit. Also, I was invited to lunch with my supervisor and another Team lead, and I definitely felt cool. It’s really nice to feel like not only are I doing a good job on my assigned tasks, but that I’m also creating friendships. I think that it can be easy to feel like the odd one out at a new job, especially one where people have been there for years and years.

There definitely were times where something was unclear in what I was supposed to be doing, especially because of the language barrier. In accounting, there’s only so much you can explain before you just have to figure it out, especially when working with a software like SAP. It’s easy to feel discouraged from asking questions with the fear of being a nuisance, but my supervisor has made it very clear that I can always ask questions. Most of the time something is unclear because I don’t speak German, so Deepl.com is consistently open on my computer. Overall, it feels like my supervisors are really willing to teach me a lot and to help when I get stuck, which I’m very grateful for and can tell that by the end of this experience I will learn a whole lot. I think it’s also important to try and use problem solving skills before resulting to asking for help, as it’s a good learning experience and in future jobs, a boss or coworker isn’t always going to sit down and explain everything.

Using SAP was something that was very unclear at first, as there are so many different functions and tools. My supervisor did try and explain how to use it, however I’m a visual learner and I work best by doing it myself. I wanted to try and figure it out myself without asking too many questions, and eventually I got the hang of it. After using it everyday for the past week, I’m a lot more familiar with it and know how to navigate it. Problem solving and critical thinking are skills that I set to improve on in this internship, and I have gotten some practice with using both of them.