International Internships

I would not do an internship in Paris with this company. The coordinator was extremely rude and unprofessional. She did not set me up in the correct field and I spent several weeks in lingo despite my efforts to make things work. She was very disorganized, condescending and blamed me for any mishaps that occurred which was actually due to her negligence. I took it upon myself to find an internship by talking to people I encountered and doing my best to make connections. Again, this was without the help of International Internships LLC. My suggestion is to stay far far away from the Paris internship program. The internships I was given accused this company of fraud and told me to return home immediately and get my money back and I completely understand why after my experience.

I had a great internship experience in Sao Carlos, Brazil learning about international supply chains and distribution systems. I expanded my global perspective, understood what it means to be world citizen, and developed life long friendships. My internship challenged me everyday and required me to adapt very quickly to the workplace especially the language barriers with some of my co-workers. The management team not only took the time to train me on my internship responsibilities, but the team went beyond and taught me about every aspect of the business from importing raw materials to exporting completed products. However, the best experience was developing friendships with the eight Brazilian students I lived with throughout my internship. Everyone was very welcoming and introduced me to the area. I was even able to visit several cities with my friends, play golf, and participate in JEEP off-roading. Overall, it was a great experience!

Okay, so in a nutshell I had an absolutely awesome experience, probably the best of my life, HOWEVER, this was unfortuantely not due to International Internships support/coordinators. Yes it is true that I was placed in my field of interest, but to be completely honest, my experience in France was awesome because I made it awesome. Int'l Interships was very disorganized, the coordinator in Paris was very disorganized and very rude. She was extremely condescending and very unprofessional. So basically, I gave up working or even wanting to talk with International Internship people from early on and just took things by the reigns myself, because I'm a go-getter and take initiative by nature, so it wasn't too hard for me to do that. There were issues at first with my housing, but again Int'l Internships didn't do much about it besides the coordinator acting like it was my fault or something (like I said already, she was very unhepful and rude). My own university actually contacted me about it & cared, and would have fixed the issue if the problem hadn't resolved itself. As another example, I was told that I would possibly be able to switch departments, and again, no thanks to int'l internships, I just took initiative and had an interview with the "chef" himself and organized that. If I had wanted to, I could have even transferred to another location, but again, no thanks to the unhelpful coordinator, I made the connections and calls myself, and had the "o.k." from the other institution except I didn't have time in the end so just stayed where I was. Anyways, I think it's probably hit-and-miss with this company as far as placement, and as far as interracting with them, definitely not the most pleasant experience for me. If you are a go-getter and don't let anyone or anything get in your way of doing what you want to do & fulfilling your dreams like me, then you could make lemonade out of anything & have an awesome time. So in my honest opinion, Int'l Internships did place me right (hospital internship btw), and that's HUGE, kudos to them for that since I know others have not been placed well by them, so that was lucky that it worked out for me, but the disorganization and lack of professional and courteous support while there lead me to avoid talking to them and just doing my own thing, which worked out wonderfully!

After an initial rough patch of finding a location to do my environmental internship, I was finally placed in Easkey, Co. Sligo, Irelandistory!. I wasn't sure what to expect when I got there... However, it was the best summer of my life.

I was placed at the Family Resource Centre and did research on radon in the area. The staff at the Centre was extremely helpful and always willing to take me to places to tour.

The family I lived with was just as helpful. They took me to family events with them and I felt as if I belonged.

The only thing I would have done differently is to have spent more time researching my family history!

The overall experience helped me understand my professional goals. My education helped me in preparation for the research I needed to do, but the life experience was worth the time and effort I put into making this happen.

I had a great time, internship, and Australia was amazing. However, my housing situation was not the best. I was basically the only English speaker out of 15 people and the RA was not the nicest person, and had even kicked me out a week early, and told me my lease was up. Even though, it had been paid for in advance for an extra week. The internship however, was great and I know the other kids in the same housing company were placed with nice RA's and people that spoke the same language. I would still highly recommend the experience and even, with no one that spoke my language I was still able to make friends with the locals and with other travelers. Go if you can it is tons of fun and a great experience overall.