About a year ago now, I studied abroad in London for the spring semester of my junior year. While this may be similar to other people’s experiences, I also had the privilege of interning abroad! The option to partake in an internship was one of the reasons I selected this program, as I knew it would be an incredible learning experience and something that would add to my career skills as well.
Looking back, there are so many aspects of studying and interning abroad that I took away from it, but here are three major things I learned while getting to work in a foreign country.
1. Navigating the London Underground
While this may be a basic takeaway, navigating public transportation as someone who loves to drive and is not used to living in a big city was a huge adjustment for me. Having to commute not only to my internship but also to school, threw me more into a working adult experience that many of my peers may not have had while abroad. The program I was a part of was an American program abroad, not a partnership with a European school. This meant that our school was in a building in a part of London called Kensington, and students were housed in flats all over the city. From my flat, the commute to school was about 40 minutes by tube, and my commute to work was about an hour. As I worked my internship two full days from 10:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and other days part-time before school, I had to adjust to being a commuter and plan my days to get around the city on time. For anyone considering going abroad in any city, the app CityMapper is an extremely great resource that can help get anyone from A to B showing the fastest transportation methods available — bus, subway, walking, biking, taxi, or a mix of any of them combined! They have hundreds of cities worldwide that not only helped me navigate London like a local but also other cities I got to visit while abroad.
2. Adjusting to Abroad Workplace Norms
Working in a different country brought with it differing workplace norms that took time to adjust to. Although many people could compare the United States with the U.K., as they have the same native language and many similarities, it still was an adjustment many people may be surprised about. In terms of workplace culture and methods, the company I interned at abroad was structured differently than my jobs here in America. I worked at a family-owned jewelry business on the outskirts of London, with a team of about 10-20 people. While I can’t generalize based on my one experience, many of my fellow classmates also interning abroad experienced many of these adjustments as well. For example, in terms of communication, emails are not used quite as often. Phone calls and WhatsApp messaging (rather than texting) are the quickest ways to communicate. Business that is conducted is much more non-committal and impulsive than the set-in-stone work my past jobs have enforced, which as someone with a planning personality, I had to adjust the way I conducted my work. Something else I found, was that conducting meaningful small talk is valued in London, over the American “fine thank you” response that has become so automated in daily life.
3. Befriending Co-workers Abroad!
An incredible part about working abroad was getting to work with local Londoners. At the jewelry company I worked at, some of the girls who made the jewelry were university students my age, which was an amazing experience to befriend people my age from a different country! Some of my other coworkers were also older adults who worked on the business side of the company or helped with production as well, but the team was so cohesive and welcoming as a whole that despite being in a foreign environment, they helped me adjust quickly. I am still in touch with many of them and now have friends around the globe!
Not to be cliché, but getting to study and intern abroad was an experience that not only shaped my social and academic worlds but my career experiences as well. Being able to intern in a workplace abroad was a cultural experience like no other that, if given the opportunity, I couldn’t recommend more!
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