Hi everyone! I am officially entering the final week of my internship and time here in Berlin. It’s an incredibly bittersweet goodbye. Even though I’ve had an amazing time here exploring Berlin and the rest of Europe, I miss my family and friends and I’m very excited to return home and see them again! I also have a lot of stuff to look forward to like the Jersey shore, Lollapalooza, and seeing my friends back in Pittsburgh!
This past week has been a lot more relaxed then my previous ones. I’ve been trying to slow down a bit before I return home. Since I’ve been here, especially in the past month, its been go go go non-stop. Whether it’s a new place, country, or food spot, I’ve been exploring a lot. I decided I would take more time to myself while also exploring at my own pace. On Monday, I went home and relaxed for a bit until we decided to go to a pub and stay up late for the USA vs. Belgium game. Even though that game ended in defeat, we all had a great time being together and catching up.
On Tuesday, I hopped on the S9 after work and traveled to Alexanderplatz to visit the DDR museum. The S9 runs right through the center of the city, and I usually take the S46 to and from work, which for the most part is pretty empty. So, experiencing the S9 during rush hour wasn’t exactly ideal. But, once I got there, it was interesting to see how East Germans and East Berliners lived in the Soviet Era. It’s also interesting to see a difference in the way history is taught in the USA vs. in Berlin. It’s still a general consensus that life in West Berlin was a much better place than in East Berlin. But, people still lived very normal lives in East Berlin, and I was able to get a peak at what that looked like. After I that was done, I took time to walk around the area explore the Berliner Dom and TV Tower. I haven’t visited these places since Week 1, so it was nice to reminisce, walk around, and enjoy the beautiful weather. I also grabbed some Vietnamese coffee on the way home, which was incredible.
This upcoming weekend is my last full weekend in Europe. I plan on staying in Berlin because I’ve been traveling to a new place every weekend since the beginning of June. I plan on exploring areas of Berlin I haven’t yet and spending time with friends before we leave and enter our final week of our internship.
I would say my internship defines success in a couple of different ways. Since I work in a lab, the way my supervisor measures my success is different from how they measure a researchers success. For a scientist, it may be a experiment that ended up proving their hypothesis or engineering a product that can be sold. For me, its more about sales and analytics. How many followers on LinkedIn have we gained since you started? Has anyone responded to your cold emails? Did you get the flyer done yet/how does it look? It’s two very different viewpoints
One example of me achieving success was getting a response to one of my cold emails, and closing a deal with a new client who bought one of our products! That was the first time I’ve ever “sold” anything in a corporate environment. It felt good, and my boss congratulated me for it! But, the difference between how my company treats “successful” employees is different from how US companies do. In the US, if you are successful, you usually get a promotion, a lot of recognition, and treated with more respect. At my company, success is still celebrated, but it’s more muted. Everyone still comes to work everyday on the same playing field, and no one is competing for a promotion or respect. I honestly like the un-competitiveness of my company, but I always wish there was more of a ladder to climb. It could also be because my company is very small, but that’s just from my perspective
I have one final blog after this one, but this is my last post in-country! I’m so grateful for the opportunity to be here and experience working in an international space. Tune in next time where I’ll reflect on my experience here and how I’ll use the skills I’ve gained and apply them in the United States.
