AIFS Abroad Reviews

My London internship experience was amazing. GE did a great job at listening to me and applying the information I gave them about myself and my interests in finding me the most fitting internship sight. The process to getting my student visa and all of the background work was a little stressful at times but I would call GE and the staff was very helpful and made me feel more confident. Bottom line the process to getting to my internship was easy and doable with the help of the GE staff. Once in London the accommodation at Nido is..meh. You have to pay money to activate your Nido card online so you can do laundry and the laundry is outrageously expensive, my roommate and I did our laundry in our sink the whole 8 weeks. To be honest it isn't the greatest place to live and it is a bit noisy but it works for 8 weeks. One thing that I would like to make note of is to save for transportation. London transportation (i.e. the tube) is not cheap. If you are able to walk or ride a bike to your internship I would definitely recommend doing that! Another thing with commuting be prepared for large crowds (i.e. New York City crowds) London is compacted with lots of people and lots of energy. Good thing though if you find yourself getting stressed out with everything, there is a GE staff member who has "office hours" at the student living and you can talk to them! Anyway to summarize the rest, I had a great time and GE was a big help, just like anything you get out of it what you put in.

I wouldn't have been able to take this opportunity and overcome personal challenges before-hand without the support of the GE team. Once I arrived at my location abroad, I had an amazing time. My internship exposed me to many different aspects in my field. The accommodation was comfortable and modern and the staff was very responsive if something, like an appliance, needed to be fixed. I made amazing friends and I was able to experience a rich culture. Our location rep helped us to explore the city by taking us on really enjoyable day trips. I came away feeling empowered and I learned so much. I now feel in not only a much better position professionally, but also personally as I grew so much through this experience.

I must say that the application process with GE went much smoother than I thought it would. Emily Oliver ensured that I had everything submitted in a timely manner and that I was prepared for my interview with my internship placement. I was very impressed with this process as it can usually get very sticky and annoying. It didn't though and I'm very grateful to Emily for that.
I have been to London before with family but never alone...for two months...working. Even though I am a fairly independent person I knew that the onsite GE staff (Melissa and Grace) was always there for me if I had a problem or question. Melissa and Grace (and I suspect GE overall) won't give you the run of the mill feedback when questioned. They genuinely care for the GE interns and will respond to any problem or question in a thoughtful manner.
My internship in London was great. Although it didn't directly relate to my field on study in college, I gained valuable work experience and friendships that will last a life time. I became comfortable in a professional environment and provided the company I worked for with valuable work.
GE is completely conducive to your freedom and living the night life if you so choose. It's truly your summer and you can make it what you want it to be. I honestly had the most fun I've ever had and formed friendships that will continue back in the states. For example, I'm meeting up with another GE intern a couple of weekends from now in NY.
The living accommodations are great. Nido student living (Kingscross) is located in a very central location which allowed my friends and I to go anywhere at any time. Just be advised that the tube doesn't run anywhere after 12 midnight in London, you have to the take the bus (it's very easy- easier than NY). The rooms are a little small but very nice. If your someone who is going to take advantage of your time in London this doesn't matter as you'll spend most of your time exploring the UK and the rest of Europe. Nido does have a very nice court yard and lounge areas that people hangout as well.
There is tons more I can say about my summer in London and Global Experiences but that would make this the longest review of all time. I'll just say that GE is an amazing program that gave me the opportunity of a lifetime. I have formed such valuable friendships and professional contacts and am truly appreciative towards the GE program/staff. Thank you for a great summer!

I was excited when my parents agreed to spend this much money for me to go abroad for the summer. The GE staff is really helpful all prior to going abroad and they offer a ton of webinars to get you ready.

READ THIS PART:
I got my internship placement in April and waited for all my visa stuff to arrive. I kept bugging my programme advisor Emily to see if she could contact my placement to see where things were going....TWO WEEKS before I was meant to leave for London, Emily called to tell me that my placement hadn't responded to BUNAC and I would have to be placed elsewhere. So, I was placed somewhere else that didn't actually pertain to my major at all and was under a time crunch for my VISA. My VISA was late and I had to delay my departure 3 days because of this. GE DOES NOT offer any reimbursement of any type for VISA issues. I had purchased a first class ticket as a birthday gift from my parents and because of my VISA being late, I had to buy an ENTIRELY new ticket. Full price. Coach. Goodbye birthday present. This was bottom line the MOST frustrating...besides the accommodations!

Although NIDO is VERY safe. You're literally living in a closet. Smaller than most campus dorms. I think I would have enjoyed my experience so much more if I wasn't living in NIDO. I truly hated it. You don't have your own kitchen and living room like they tell you. It is a bed, desk, and teeny tiny bathroom.

Alright, to the experience itself. I had an AMAZING time in London. I ended up loving my internship. I had the best supervisor and she definitely catered to my needs and helped me get any experience that I was wanting to have. I am an event planning major and I ended up getting to plan and execute my own event for one of the services that I worked for. I learned so much about how a company works and it was a ton of things that I will be able to apply in my future. I absolutely loved London too. It is an amazing city with so many things to do. You are never ever bored. I got to do a bit of traveling as well and I kinda wish I asked for more weekends off so I could travel more. I didn't get as many places as I would have liked to. GE offers a lot of free events (that you pay for in that 8000 package deal) like seeing shows, pub crawls, walking tours and what not. I never went on a walking tour because I have been to London multiple times already. I know people that have never been enjoyed them for the most part.

I had an AMAZING roommate. We found each other on Facebook and requested to room with each other.
We did absolutely everything together and we got along amazingly. She honestly made my experience that much more amazing. I know most people in the programme got along with their roommates but most were not as lucky as me that is for sure.

The GE staff is okay when you get on the ground in London but I felt that I was pretty much on my own which was completely fine with me.

Had my parents known that I was going to London to do nothing that pertained to my major they would have strongly reconsidered sending me there for this price.

Overall, I did have an amazing experience. Was it worth $8000? Thats up to you....I would move to London in a heart beat and my company told me to think of them when I begin my job searching, but the experience is everything that you personally make it.

I would recommend the programme but I would strongly consider thinking long and hard about it.

Great overall experience. Can't speak enough about it. Learned a great deal, met some great people and experienced a great culture.

The weekdays revolved around work. I felt like I got an idea of what big city living is about. The weekends were spent exploring Sydney and seeing what it had to offer.

Great program!

My experience with Global was wonderful! Bali was very helpful and very supportive! And he put up with a lot of unneeded situations and went beyond the call of help! I highly recommend not placing anyone at the company I was placed with again. They are a terrible company and I went into work everyday basically doing nothing and learning nothing! I think I might of talked to my supervisor a total of 5 times the whole summer. It's not an internship it's a secretary job, and for the amount we pay I was expecting to have the experience everyone else from GE Sydney walked out with. Other than that everything was wonderful. Location was perfect and so was everything else.

One of the best things about interning in Dublin is that you get to feel a part of their society. You are no longer just a tourist there to see the sights, but you get to contribute to their society and you get past just the facade of the country. It takes a lot to get used to getting to the right place and doing the right thing in a new country, but it's so worth it to come out on the other side successful.

I am so glad I decided to do an internship through a program instead of finding everything on my own. Though it seems expensive, you have to keep in mind how expensive things Sydney cost. GE gives you the opportunity to get to know people in the program from all over the world and share in this experience with them.

GE staff are very helpful in the preparations for the trip and were always there to answer questions and give advice.

My work days in Ireland were long but rewarding. I left my apartment around 6:30am to be on time for the public transportation to my bosses' house where he drove me the rest of the way to work. We normally ended our work day around 5:30pm, which made for an exhausting travel back to the apartment. The main difficulties that I encountered were the costs and the great amount of time that using public transportation on my commute consumed. However, the highlight of my day was usually going out on the town and experiencing the interesting Irish cuisine with my roommates and co-workers.

When I got involved with Global Experiences the summer of 2011, I had no idea just how much it would impact my life. From the very beginning, the GE staff were incredibly supportive and helpful. They knew exactly what I was looking for in an internship and were their to guide me through the whole process, including the frustrating and often confusion process of applying for a visa. It was the first time I had ever lived abroad myself, so I was really nervous. But as soon as I got into London and found the student accommodation, they were there waiting to greet me. While they had orientations and events planned, they still treated us like adults. We were expected to navigate around the city and to our internships ourselves. The internship itself was a blast. In the first week I got to go to a concert for free and hang out with artists and interview them. I was given a lot of freedom to write articles and reviews I was interested in, and I felt my feedback was appreciated. There were some stressful and less glamorous days when I had to do mundane tasks like returning clothes from photo shoots. I would definitely recommend getting a smart phone because I often got lost. But for the most part, the people I worked with were really fun and encouraging, and I'm still in touch with them even today. GE were always checking to make sure I was happy with my placement and doing well. The only negative thing I would say is the accommodation was very small and I had to share with someone who I didn't particularly get along with. But other than that, the experience as a whole was fantastic. I made some amazing lifelong friends, got a real taste of the culture, and loved London so much that I moved back to get my Master's. I'm still in touch with Global Experiences today, and they are very helpful and supportive to alumni!