Intern Abroad with a Startup this Summer

Intern Abroad with a Startup this Summer

Location
Multiple Locations +6
  • Australia
    • Sydney
  • Germany
    • Berlin
  • Netherlands
    • Amsterdam
  • Spain
    • Barcelona
    • Madrid
  • Portugal
    • Lisbon
  • France
    • Paris
Length
8 weeks

Program Details

Compensation
Stipend
Timeframe
Summer
Housing
Apartment
Language
English
Weekly Hours
40
Age Min.
18
Age Max
22

Pricing

What's Included
Accommodation Some Activities Some Meals Wifi
What's Included (Extra)

Sage Corps Skills Academy
Resume review
Interview preparation training
Pre-departure advising
2-day Orientation
Welcome, midpoint, and final cohort dinner
Internship with startup
Weekly events
Medical insurance
24/7 local staff support
3-6 optional academic credits

What's Not Included
Airfare Meals SIM cards Transportation Visa
Sep 09, 2025
Mar 10, 2026
43 travelers are looking at this program

About Program

Spend your summer interning abroad! Sage Corps is an international internship program that sends students to work with startups.

We design our programs to teach students valuable skills for trending jobs. First, students spend time completing hard skill training modules as part of our Sage Corps Skills Academy. Next, students intern at global startups where they gain real world experience, either in-person with a cohort or remotely from home.

Our programs help college students and recent graduates accelerate their careers, and prepare for a competitive job market in the global economy. After completing our program, students join a talented alumni community of like-minded young professionals who accept full time positions at some of the world’s top international companies and startups.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS SUMMARY

Participants gain hands-on startup experience abroad with strong support from staff and city managers, building professional skills and lasting friendships.

Program Highlights

  • Make the most of your summer by spending 8-weeks abroad, gaining valuable work experience at a startup across a variety of industries
  • Live with other Sage Corps interns in centrally located apartment style housing
  • Gain unique global experience that will make you stand out in future job interview
  • Have the option to earn 3-6 academic credits alongside your internship

Program Reviews

4.80 Rating
based on 61 reviews
  • 5 rating 88.52%
  • 4 rating 8.2%
  • 3 rating 0%
  • 2 rating 1.64%
  • 1 rating 1.64%
  • Growth 4.75
  • Support 4.65
  • Fun 4.65
  • Housing 4.6
  • Safety 4.8
  • Academics 5
  • Support 4.5
  • Fun 5
  • Housing 5
  • Safety 5
Showing 41 - 48 of 61 reviews
Natalie
4/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Summer in Stockholm

After spending the summer working and living in Stockholm, I can say I would definitely recommend the program. I had an amazing experience with my cohort; collectively, we were able to maintain a nice work hard, play hard balance. The housing accommodations were also great. We were placed in a modern apartment/hotel where there was weekly cleaning and free on-site laundry.
On the professional side of things, my experience was okay. Many times, the other intern and I were the only ones in the office (the company was small - 2 people total). Our bosses were open to messages, but they weren't always super responsive, so it was hard to get feedback and move on to next tasks. In addition, the networking/cultural events were rarely beneficial and seemed to be a waste of time. Although, I don't necessarily blame this on the city lead as they've obviously never attended the event so they also wouldn't know what to expect.

What would you improve about this program?
I would decrease the cost of the program. The program
75 people found this review helpful.
Jasmine
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Amazing experience with Sage Corps!

I had an amazing experience thanks to Sage Corps. Before coming to Australia, I thought I would be so worried and nervous about working in another country for 2 months. Surprisingly, I wasn't. I wasn't stressed because Sage Corps organized my housing, connected me with potential employers, and had city managers I could talk to about my life in Melbourne. The only thing I had to do was book flights. Even though it would have been nice to get a detailed schedule of the program before it started, the city and community managers of Sage Corps were very responsive to my inquiries.

I am so glad I decided to do this program because I had the best internship experience. I thought my first ever internship would mostly be composed of printing documents and getting coffee. However, my experience was the total opposite. I was given a lot of responsibilities and all of my work went into great use. I was making a difference in my workplace. My coworkers were very welcoming and inspiring. At the end of 2 months, I didn't want to leave.

I loved the city of Melbourne as well. It is filled with culture, kind people, and good food. The architecture is beautiful and the wall arts give the city more character. It is easy to get around the city thanks to all the public transportation. Also, there is always something to do, ranging from visiting the winter markets to going on a bar crawl.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this program. It was one of the best experiences I've had.

What would you improve about this program?
1. I would lower the cost.
2. I would choose professional workshops that are related to what the students are studying and what they would be interested in.
262 people found this review helpful.
Jonah
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Sage Corps Sydney

I am extremely grateful for the opportunity that Sage Corps provided me with to gain valuable work experience while traveling to new destinations around the world.
In December of 2016, during the first semester of my junior year of college, I had no idea what I was going to do the following summer. I was living with two guys who were going to study abroad, and I was very jealous of them because my curriculum did not allow for me to take a semester to study abroad. It was always something that I had planned on doing and looked forward to doing, but I was not able to. I did not have a summer internship lined up and I knew that I needed one. So at this time there were two things on my agenda: find a summer internship and find a way to travel abroad.
In comes Sage Corps, who allowed me to do both. After a few discussions with Matt Meltzer about the program, I knew this was something I wanted to do. The application process was very smooth, and thankfully I got accepted to go work and live in Sydney, Australia for three months.
Another thing that attracted me to Sage Corps was the exposure to the startup industry. My previous work experience was with bigger companies, and I was very intrigued by the opportunity to go work at a smaller company where I had more responsibility and freedom within my role. In addition, Sage Corps staff connected our cohort in Sydney with a local individual in the startup community there who brought us around to networking and teambuilding events.
Overall, I really enjoyed my summer with Sage Corps in Sydney and would highly recommend the program to anyone trying to broaden their work experience while traveling to new places that you might not get to travel to otherwise.

234 people found this review helpful.
Madeleine
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

8 weeks interning in Sydney

I just returned from my Sage Corps experience in Sydney, Australia. Sage provided me with a great internship, set up well located housing for me and put me in contact with a member of Sage Corps in the city for questions, recommendations and advice. I left Sydney (reluctantly) with not only lifelong friends, connections and one of a kind experience, but a job offer as well. As with anything, the Sage Corps experience is what you make it. Sage gave me all the resources I needed to get settled into a new city and job and then was very hands-off, save the weekly talks they set up.

What would you improve about this program?
The options for healthcare while abroad could've been clearer- otherwise great.
207 people found this review helpful.
Jack
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Sage Corps Summer Internship in Singapore

The decision to intern abroad through Sage Corps was one of the best decisions I made in college. The experience I had was incredibly valuable, and certainly a big factor in leading me to the job I have today. My Sage Corps summer fellowship took place in Singapore. Part of the reason I chose Sage Corps was because they offered a program in Singapore. This city is at the forefront of cutting-edge technology and entrepreneurship. There’s an incredible amount of opportunity and energy there that I wanted to experience it firsthand.

Professionally, the internship I had was unbeatable. I worked for a startup called billionBricks. billionBricks is a non-profit design studio that creates sustainable housing solutions to solve homelessness around the world but mainly focusing on India and Southeast Asia. My roles included marketing, business development, and strategy. Specifically, I helped implement a marketing campaign at the beginning of the internship and then focused on developing corporate partnerships during the rest of my time. I was even able to work with companies like IBM. I learned an incredible amount about social entrepreneurship while at the same time building valuable soft and hard skills.

The Sage Corps programming also added to my experience. Our cohort got to know each other really well and some of us traveled to other Southeast Asian destinations like Malaysia, Cambodia, and Thailand - certainly unforgettable weekends. In addition, our city manager coordinated professional events that really stood out. Some of the more memorable events were our meetings with local Venture Capitalists as well as our meeting with Singaporean Government Officials. These events offered unrivaled insight into the current state of Singapore and really opened my eyes to how successful the city is at fostering innovation. Singapore is definitely one of the top tech hubs in the world and it was an exciting time to be there.

85 people found this review helpful.
Adele
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

The Smartest Way to Spend Your Summer

I am overjoyed with my 2017 internship through Sage Corps at Increase, a FinTech startup in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Over the course of three months I worked side by side with the CMO, CTO, and CEO as the company transitioned from Google’s OKR management system to a Holacracy. Though I took on many roles as a business associate, I feel that my most valuable opportunity was in helping with the restructuring of the company. My contribution came in two forms. The first was an extensive competitor analysis for each department within the startup, from Sales to Development. Through analytics, working closely with each team, and understanding the core mission of the startup, I was able to produce the second piece of my contribution: a strategic plan for the 2017 year for the Sales and Marketing teams. My time at Increase was invaluable as it taught me to approach each challenge with a holistic, open-minded and client-facing perspective. Beyond the internship, Sage Corps provided a number of networking, learning, and professional development opportunities and the city of Buenos Aires gave me the time of my life! The combination of individual, professional, and intellectual growth that Sage Corps provides their interns with is unparalleled.

What would you improve about this program?
Lower financial cost
178 people found this review helpful.
Alexis
5/5
Yes, I recommend this program

Sage Corps Hong Kong

I had an amazing Sage Corps experience. At my internship, I wasn’t running errands or getting coffee- all of the work that I completed at the startup went into production. I was able to collaborate with the cofounders, CEO, and founding partner on a daily basis to help make strategic decisions about the future of the company. I listened to the cofounders pitch to investors, took ownership for a very critical project, and built a robust professional network in HK. Outside of work, I had so much fun exploring the city with my cohort and friends from work. I also got to explore nearby countries like Vietnam and Japan during the summer. When I returned to campus, Sage Corps helped me land my full time role in consulting, as the experience was so unique. It was one of the best summers of my life and I’d definitely recommend the program to others!!

148 people found this review helpful.
Nainika
1/5
No, I don't recommend this program

Please Read Before Considering Sage Corps

I recently finished an internship with Sage Corps and they were *very* unhelpful. They didn’t find me an internship until ONE WEEK before we were deployed to our cities, and two of the interns showed up without work assignments. One of them got paired with a “startup” that was just a woman freelancing web design out of her *apartment*. Another girl didn’t have a job for the first two weeks.
I was lucky with my work experience, though - my company was supportive and patient while I learned new programming languages and technologies. The problem though is really with the “network”, which is completely a product of the imagination. A few of our fellows went to another city and tried to contact the fellows in that city to meet up, and they didn’t even respond. The male city manager (there are two of these who are supposed to be your point of contact in case of emergency and hold weekly professional or social events) unsolicitedly messaged me and another girl, attempting to engage us in one-on-one hangouts that neither of us accepted for obvious reasons.
Yeah, that *totally *makes me feel safe going to him in case of emergency.
Don’t even get me started on the “helpfulness” and “support” they provide you! You get zero value for your money. The professional events they took us to were random events they found on the Meetup website, and most of them were a complete joke. We went to a talk given by the CEO of a cryptocurrency, who was fined for embezzlement mere weeks later.
Additionally, one of the members of my cohort was posting racist content in the GroupMe and Sage Corps did nothing about it.

Oh - and one of my roommates went outwardly hostile on me because I didn’t get out of the house when she wanted me to (I only had a one-hour warning, mind you) and cursed me out and used very abusive language. I had seen the warning signs when she quit her job halfway through and blamed everyone around her for her problems, and used her French boyfriend to get free drinks and fought with him when he said he couldn’t give her drinks one night, and tried to ask Sage Corps nicely to move me to another apartment owned by the same housing company. Sage Corps *outwardly lied to me* and said that there was nothing they could do and no other apartments were available. During check-out, I turned my keys in in-person at the housing office and they told me no one from Sage Corps had contacted them, advocated on my behalf, or even identified that I was having a housing issue.
On to stipends…the CEO of my company signed the paperwork for my stipend to be released twice, and Sage Corps kept saying they didn’t receive it until I sent them a screenshot of it. Then, they tried to say he hadn’t disbursed the funds from the bank, and I sent a screenshot of that as well. Magically, the funds appeared in my account that afternoon after they’d told me “they hadn’t received anything.” I got paid a full month after I was supposed to. Luckily I took money with me to survive, but had I depended on that stipend to get by, I’d have been starving on the streets while Sage Corps kept the money in their account, presumably to rack up interest.
Overall, disgusted with the experience. You’d have a better chance at cold-calling companies in your target country.

128 people found this review helpful.
Response from Sage Corps

Hi Nainika,

First of all, I'm incredibly sorry that you felt as though your experience with Sage Corps was subpar and did not meet your expectations. We work hard to ensure each student has a meaningful, safe, and productive experience in our program.

We are thrilled that you had such a positive professional experience. We work hard to ensure that each student learns and grows professionally. And as you'll see, this specific experience will prove incredibly valuable to prospective employers when you apply/interview for full time roles.

As we have previously discussed with you, we recognize that we failed to deliver the high quality personal experience and service that you deserve. We have identified the areas in which we failed, especially with respect to the conduct of other students in the program who failed to live up to our code of conduct that each of you agrees to. We have already begun putting even stronger processes in place to ensure these issues do not happen again. We appreciate your open and honest feedback, and take it very seriously.

Regarding the issue of racism within the cohort group chat, that was resolved directly with the offending student as soon as we learned of the issue. We take issues like this very seriously and our team addresses them as soon as we are made aware. I apologize if it was not communicated to you that the issue was taken care of. Again, we should have done better.

As for housing, we apologize for the miscommunications/lack of communication between members of our team. We understand how stressful a negative housing experience can be, and will work much harder to resolve these types of issues quickly in the future.

When it comes to stipends, each company handles those agreements differently. We work hard to ensure the hundreds of students in our program are receiving their stipends as soon as we have the funds from our partner startups. We have our startup partners sign an extensive consulting agreement at the beginning of the program in order to guarantee they follow through on agreed-upon stipends. We cannot, however, disperse those funds to students until we have received them. Our team works as quickly as we can to ensure stipends are dispersed on time, but just like you, we're human. I assure you that we sent you the funds as soon as we received them - we have no interest in withholding stipends from stipends, obviously.

Again, we appreciate your honest and open feedback, and truly hope that you were able to find value in your abroad experience.

As always, I am happy to discuss these issues with your further. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me directly at cara (at) sagecorps (dot) com.

Questions & Answers

Hi Alicia, Thank you for your question. Yes, many of our international internships at startups focus on design - specifically UX/UI design and/or graphic design. I hope that helps, but if you have more questions you can email campusrelations@sagecorps.com! Thanks, Matt