Why go?

Why go for an internship abroad? Especially if you’re a graduate and not a student anymore, you already have some professional experience and seemingly everything needed to succeed, at least professionally.

I actually had a number of reasons. First of all, I guess I always wanted to live for some time in a different country. And a lot of my friends took some time off their university to go to another country, be it an internship abroad, summer job in the USA or whatever. So if I didn’t go I’d probably regret it as some point. And you know, “a funny thing about regret, it’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t done”.

But it is not only about being a wannabe. I guess the main reason to do it was fun, meeting new people, seeing new places, discovering differences, having a life in a way. Obviously, at some point everything will be familiar, even now the novelty begins to wear off. But I like new things and I had lots of them here, both good and bad ;-)

And there is a professional side to it as well. Before I came here I thought I would lose [instead of gain] professionally becasue I would be an intern and in Poland I could apply for a regular position in some well-respected company and gain regular work experience. It is true in a way. But the company I work for turned out to be better than I thought :-) And right now I’m involved in a couple of interesting projects for remarkable clients and I hope my involvment and impact on each of them will grow with time. No name-ddropping right now, but I’m sure that my resume will have to be severly reorganized once I finish the internship.

It is also a way of postponing one serious decision - where do I want to work and who do I want to work as.* At the time of making the decision of going for an internship I was a project manager in a web agency, which was pretty far away from my dream job. At that time I didn’t know what my dream job was, but I was sure that it was not this one. [The stupid thing is that I knew it before I even got employed]. I still don’t know what my dream job is, but I have a better idea, I still have some time and I will be a lot more likely to get it after this internship.

I also hoped to improve my German skills, which has not happened yet. But I hope I’ll eventually take care of that as well. Obviously, such an internship will not make me even intermediate in German, but it may make me interested in it, and that would be enough.

* Make no mistake, your job has a huge impact on your life and, thus, happines. If you despise your job and the mere idea of going there revolts you, there is no way you could be happy.

Over and out.