It is officially time to go home after eight weeks in Dublin, and I simply cannot believe that it is over. This time has flew by tremendously, and I have so many mixed feelings about it. I am excited to go home, see my family, and get back to my normal routine, however, I am devastated about leaving Dublin and my friends. I am so grateful for this program and all of the new experiences and friends it has brought me, and I wouldn’t change a thing. 

Since it was our last week, my friends and I all decided to take advantage of it and celebrate as much as we could. On Wednesday, we had our farewell event that EUSA set up for us at The Church, and it was such a nice time. The food and drinks were great, and we got to participate in some fun Irish dancing. As for the rest of the week, our friend group decided to go out to pubs and restaurants up until the day we left, and it was a really great time. Since we were all leaving and flying back to our hometowns on Saturday, Friday was our last night together. Even though a lot of my friends also go to Pitt, it was still really hard saying bye to everyone. None of us will ever experience something like this ever again, especially together. Once we said our goodbyes, I went home to finish up packing everything and went to sleep. The next morning, I took a cab to the airport and officially said bye to Ireland one last time before lifting off and heading to back New Jersey. 

When reflecting on my internship, it was such an amazing experience where I learned so much more about finance and I met so many great people. This past week was definitely my favorite at my internship, just because my coworkers were intent on celebrating my last week of being here and it was a lot of fun. In the beginning of the week, everyone from the finance department pitched in for a goodbye gift for me, which I really appreciated. The gift included a teddy bear wearing a RCSI lab coat, a nice hoodie that had the RCSI logo on it, and a voucher for stores around the city with $250 on it. This amount  of money was a lot to spend in only a couple days, so I got right on it. My first two purchases were from Brown Thomas, consisting of a nice YSL perfume called Black Opiom and a new NARS concealer. I then did some shopping for my family, buying them Dublin sweatshirts and Irish candy. Lastly, on my last day, my coworkers took me to go shopping at a place called Pennies, which is a very popular place to go shopping in Ireland. It reminded me of a Target or Marshalls, where there is a wide selection of things to buy and the prices are reasonable. I got a few little things there including clothes and jewelry, which was a really fun time. My coworkers also had me try a famous brand of chips there called Tayto’s which were really delicious. It was so fun to be going out with my coworkers my last day and to spend that time with them before I left for good. Additionally, the last meal I got for my lunch break was fish and chips, which I thought was very fitting. As for how my internship handles success, I feel as though they do things similar to US. Whenever I completed an assignment or task at RCSI, I received praise from my supervisors, which was encouraging. They were always very good at letting me know when I did a job well done or when I can fix things, and I thought that was a very effective method. It was nice to know the places in which I did well, but it was also very helpful learning about what I could improve on. Furthermore, we did a feedback meeting in the middle of the program, and it was very descriptive and insightful. They told me that I was a very hard worker, I picked things up quickly, and I had a good attitude. I was very happy to learn that I was performing well and actually being helpful to the company. Also, when I received the gift at the end of the internship, I also thought that it was an indication that I did well and that they were grateful of the work that I did there. I was very proud of what I accomplished at this internship and just throughout the program as a whole. I feel like I definitely grew as a person both socially and professionally.