Before coming to Madrid, I had a pretty basic idea of what leadership looked like. I thought leaders were the people in charge, the ones giving directions, making decisions, and always knowing the right answer. After spending the summer interning at Jaleo Language School, my perspective has changed. I have learned that leadership is not…
Tag: IIP Madrid
Leading without a Playbook
Hola todos! Six weeks in, and this program continues to find new ways to push me in directions I did not see coming. This week’s prompt asks me to reflect on leadership, which is a word I have always felt a little complicated about. Not because I shy away from it, but because I think…
Skills from Outside of the Box
Hola todos! Five weeks into this internship, and I have officially hit the point where I stopped counting the days and started actually noticing how much I have changed since I got here. This week’s prompt asks me to reflect on the skills I am building, both the soft kind and the hard kind, and…
Yinzer to Yapper
During my time in Madrid, I have developed several transferable skills, particularly in the area of communication and social interaction, that I never anticipated would become such an important part of my experience. Before arriving in Spain, I was accustomed to keeping interactions with strangers relatively brief. In Pittsburgh, it is common for people to…
Creativity and Competencies in Madrid
Hola! I have been having a wonderful time exploring Spain. This weekend my friends and I went to Málaga, where we rented a boat and swam in the Mediterranean Sea. I’ve been doing so much sightseeing, working and exploring, and while I’ve loved being active it was very nice to have an experience that was…
Slowing Down is Harder Than It Seems
After traveling to another city literally every weekend (and even another country during the week), I finally decided to stay put this past weekend. While many of my peers went to Sevilla, my new friend Ashley and I stayed back to enjoy what the outdoors of Madrid has to offer. We went hiking at La…
When in Spain, Follow Along
Hola todos! Four weeks in, and I think it is finally time to have an honest conversation about culture shock. Not the dramatic kind you see in movies, where someone lands in a foreign country and immediately melts down over not being able to find a cheeseburger. The quieter kind, where little things accumulate over…
Beso or Fist-Bump?
Madrid is not as different from Pittsburgh as I initially expected. Before arriving, I imagined that living in Spain would feel completely unfamiliar, but in many ways, Madrid reminds me of home, just on a much larger scale. Both cities are diverse and full of people from different backgrounds, and both offer countless things to…
Week 3: Settling In (sorta)
¡Hola! Time has been flying by here in Madrid (as it often does when you’re having fun), and I can’t believe it’s getting close to halfway through the program. This past week I had a friend from Pitt and my parents visit me, which made me realize how settled I’d become; I actually had recommendations…
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