The weeks have been flying by in my time as a student in the international internship in Dublin. With a busy schedule of work and spending my free time with friends, days pass by in a happy blur. Last weekend, I got my first opportunity taste of traveling while in Dublin, as I got to visit London with new friends I have made on the program. London was a beautiful city, and I got to see popular destinations such as the British Museum, Buckingham Palace, and Big Ben to name a few of the many things I did on the trip. This weekend, I look forward to exploring more of Ireland and seeing some of the tourist hot spots the island is so well known for.

Now that I have been with my placement for some time, I feel more comfortable in my role and skilled in handling all the various responsibilities assigned to me throughout the day. My coworkers trust me to handle more tasks and expect a higher level of participation and performance than they did when I first started here. This comes with a mixed bag of respect and uncertainty. While I am grateful that my coworker’s trust is growing in me, I no longer get the same constant supervision and clear instruction I did when I first started, and now have to think more on my feet and use my limited experience to infer the best course of action as I see fit moment by moment.
Although my coworkers and supervisors no longer hold my hand through every task, they are still always open and willing to receive and answer any question I have when confusion arises. Asking questions is vital to understand the nature of a task and ensure that you are doing the task correctly to the best of your ability. I always maintain the attitude that there are no stupid questions, and it is better to ask a question for clarification than make a wrong assumption that leads to a stupid mistake that could have easily been rectified if the right question had been asked initially. Thankfully, my coworkers recognize and appreciate that this is my first time working in the legal field and in an office setting, so they understand that I am new to all of this and employ empathy when going over things with me for the first time. I also believe that asking questions is the main way to grow with any skill or when learning something new in general, and, in time, all those questions will translate to a higher level of skill and expertise that could not have been achieved without them in the beginning.

Although asking questions is great, sometimes my coworkers are busy with their own tasks and do not have the time to explain something to me. When this happens, it is up to me to use my common sense and accumulated experience with the firm to figure out what to do in a given situation. For example, yesterday I had to pick up a package from the security reception in the building, the first time I was asked to do this, and without directions on where I could find this place in the building. Since I work in the Capel building, it is not always clear where a specific portion of the building is as there are many offices and several floors making up the complex. My supervisor gave me this task in passing as he rushed off to court before I could ask how to find the location of the package. To figure this out, I went downstairs to the main reception and followed the signs and my intuition on where I thought the security reception would be based on where others shared accommodations are in the building. Through this strategy, I was able to pick up the package and get it back to the office in spite of the fact that I did it without assistance or guidance from any of my coworkers or supervisor.

As I continue to work as an intern at Daly Khurshid Solicitors, the amount of uncertainty I enter each day with has been gradually diminishing. Every day, I get a little bit better than I was the day before and clearer on how to best achieve my tasks with accuracy and efficiency. When uncertainty does pop up, I handle it by asking questions to my superiors or using my common sense and experience to cure this confusion.