My time in Madrid was full of enriching experiences that have provided me with newfound knowledge, interests, and connections. I arrived in Madrid excited for my internship and excited to explore the city, but found myself overwhelmed with the adjustment to my second language and with apprehensions about making friends. With time, being surrounded by Spanish all day long, I became more accustomed to hearing Spanish 24/7 and my language skills significantly improved. I understand and am able to speak in Spanish more with ease. This made me very happy to make such progress on a goal of fluency that I have had for years. I now understand the importance of living in a country that surrounds you with your target language, and how it accelerates the rate of your learning. It also allows you to speak Spanish more naturally, as the longer that you spend time with local people, the more you pick up their slang and ways of phrasing situations differently than you may have been taught by the textbook in school. Additionally, despite my apprehensions about making friends, I made an effort to get to know the other girls in my internship group. We clicked and I made several new friends. Some of my best memories from my time in Madrid are with them. I am also very thankful for my host family. They were so warm, positive, welcoming, and hospitable. They are people that I really look up to as role models, and I want to maintain my connection with them. I also had the opportunity to meet many different people from across the world when giving tours of properties during my internship. I found it very rewarding to get to connect with these people and learn about their lives and what brings them to Madrid. Overall, I had a positive experience with Spanish people and their culture. I appreciate their kindness, openness, hospitality, and relaxedness. The pace of life in Spain felt slower and more present in comparison to the United States. I love this about Spain and I felt that increased my quality of life. I am very thankful for all of the connections and relationships that I made in Madrid.
Professionally, I feel that I gained a stronger sense of career direction, as well as diversified my interests within business and marketing. As a marketing major, my main interest has been brand management. When I learned that my internship was in B2B sales, I was excited to expand my knowledge into a new area, but had always found sales intimidating, and did not have enough of an understanding of the field to determine if I had an interest in it. Now, after working in B2B sales, I am not only no longer intimidated by sales but actively enjoy it and will be adding sales jobs and business development to my career search for jobs after graduation. I found it very rewarding and engaging to play an active part in developing the business as a member of the sales team. I also learned that I enjoy working in real estate. Especially in a city as historic and beautiful as Madrid, working in this industry allowed me to explore the beautiful architecture and thoroughly learn about the different areas of Madrid. Lastly, I enjoyed giving tours of properties because it allowed me to get out of the office and not spend all day sitting at a desk.
Academically, I feel that working in a real world scenario has increased my interest in my marketing studies and will lead me to be a more engaged student, making the subject matter of my classes feel more attainable. My experience abroad, navigating a new city, culture, language, job, and travel has also made me more organized, which will in turn lead to me being more organized in my academic and professional life. I am looking forward to my senior year of school, my classes, and to further my interests in sales, business development, and marketing.
My summer in Madrid grew me professionally, academically, and personally. I am thankful for the relationships that I made and the new places that I got to explore. I grew to understand that what I value even more about traveling than seeing the iconic places are the people that I meet through these adventures. I cannot recommend international experiences for young professionals enough. It takes you completely out of your comfort zone and presents you with opportunities everyday to challenge your perspective and accustomed ways of doing things, and to embrace a new culture. I will miss Madrid, and I will look back on this chapter of my life fondly as a time of great self-growth and understanding.
– Julia McAlonis
