How Doing An Internship Abroad Informed My Experience
My decision to study abroad in Sydney, Australia just might be the greatest decision I’ve made in my twenty-years life thus far. And, choosing to do an internship in my time 9,614 miles from home made that decision a little bit sweeter. It was daunting and overwhelming to think of navigating both public transportation and a foreign professional world alone, but I learned more about myself during my time in Sydney than I ever could have predicted.
Living and studying in Sydney, Australia was magical in itself. I lived in a student apartment complex with mainly foreign students-- so lots of kids from the U.S. University of Sydney’s campus were absolutely breathtaking and mimicked the gothic magic of Hogwarts. Aside from my numerous excursions within Sydney and Australia as a whole, my time on campus was some of my favorites, but I also grew to love my time alone traveling to and from my internship.
My internship was with Beauticate, a beauty blog and informative website run by a former Australian Vogue Editor, Sigourney Cantelo. The office was about twenty minutes from my apartment, so I had to quickly master the bus system to make sure I was on time each day. Moving from the suburbs of Pittsburgh to Elon didn’t quite prepare me with experience navigating public transportation. At the beginning of my time in Sydney, not only was I nervous about a new school, new roommates, new city, etc. I was terrified and overwhelmed with this new compulsory way to get from point A to point B.
As overwhelming and daunting the feeling of uncertainty can be, I came to love it during my time studying abroad. The greatest thing you can do is embrace that feeling and use it to your advantage. By the end of my time in Sydney, I had grown to love the mornings and afternoons I spent on the 440 bus from Central Station to Bondi Junction. I grew as an individual within the professional world as I learned hands-on experience in my internship, but I also grew in my confidence outside the walls of the office as I navigated my daily routine alone.
Before going abroad I knew that I would learn and grow in new ways, but my decision to do an internship allowed me to grow and experience things I couldn’t have anticipated. I am infinitely grateful for my time with Beauticate as I have matured in confidence both as a communication professional, but also as a twenty-something facing the big scary world with her chin up high.
