Hi everyone, welcome back to my final blog entry!

As I’m writing this I’m officially back in the United States. Before I left for this abroad experience I had read other people’s blogs to get a better understanding of what other people’s experience had been like and I thought to myself “leaving my host country at the end of the program won’t be as difficult as other people made it out to be, it is only an 8-week program.” I was so wrong. Even though it was only 8 weeks, it was a completely transformative experience that I wouldn’t have been able to participate in without the opportunities provided by the Pitt business school. Choosing to pursue this amazing opportunity, to do my first internship abroad, was one of the best decisions I have ever made as it allowed me to grow professionally, personally, and academically while exploring a different culture and a whole new continent! As I’ve mentioned before in previous entries, this was my first internship and going into it I was a little scared and intimidated, for all the obvious reasons, but especially because I had never done something like that before and I wasn’t completely sure what to expect. With it being an internship in a different country, it came with its own challenges like adapting to a new culture and, in addition to that, it was also my first time going abroad by myself for a longer period of time which also made me a little more intimidated to start, but it was a wonderful experience and I got to learn so much from so many different people, from my supervisors, from the other interns who had more experience than I did, and from friends I made along the way. Thankfully, I found that the Irish culture wasn’t hard to adapt to, although it did take me a while to get used to and to understand the accent.

At first, I was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect but then I had my first day, my first week, and everything started falling into place. I started getting used to my new routine and was able to become more comfortable with the tasks I was being assigned and the more opportunities I had to practice, the more I gained confidence in my abilities. A big difference I noticed between me before the internship began and after it ended was my confidence and my abilities. When I first started, I struggled to figure out when to trust myself and when to ask for help, but the more tasks I got, the more I got the chance to improve on my skills and trust myself and what I was doing. There were still some challenges like getting sick, being unsure of how to do something, figuring out the balance between trying and failing by myself and reaching out to others for assistance, and dealing with having less detailed instruction on my tasks when compared to assignments in the United States. But I feel that dealing with these challenges and learning from them has made me a better professional and team member, as it allowed me to improve on important transferable skills like communication and teamwork while also allowing me to improve hard skills like becoming familiar with different software and working with spreadsheets and organizing data. Throughout my internship, I got to produce graphs based on data from the spreadsheets on Google Sheets and on Excel, so after getting to see how many different things can be required of employees when it comes to Google Sheets and Excel, I’ll be looking to refine and improve my abilities even more in these apps through more classes and online courses.

Something I really enjoyed about immersing myself in a different culture was seeing what Irish people valued in the work environment. At the company I worked for, everyone’s opinion was valued and it felt like our supervisors were really interested in what we were saying and in creating a good and enjoyable work environment for all while encouraging a good work/life balance. I felt that the care they put into creating a good environment in the company made us more motivated workers, pushing us to do our best work for the company. Learning more about what other cultures valued allowed me to better understand what values I want to take with me in my professional future.

It was so fun getting the chance to share a bit of my experience while interning in Ireland and I hope I get the chance to do something like this again. If anyone is reading this to decide if doing an internship abroad is worth it, all I have to say is: DO IT, IT IS DEFINITELY WORTH IT!