Really good experience

The Lisbon trip was honestly a great experience for me.

The city in general is a great place if you're someone who is worried that they will feel out of place in a foreign country, because it's so diverse and plenty of people speak English and Spanish. It has a rich culture which you feel when you're there whilst also having a good nightlife and buzzing tourist atmosphere. Whether you're a European like me or someone from another continent, Lisbon is a great place to live for a short period of time, with relatively low prices and plenty of things to see if you are a bit of a traveller (plus there's beaches nearby - the temperatures are above 30 degrees celsius in summer).

Absolute Internship (AI) were quick to resolve any issues I had during the 6 weeks I was in Lisbon and always made it clear that they wanted to help improve my experience in any way I could, albeit both their advice on how to make the most of the trip and their communication prior to me coming to Lisbon wasn't great. When I applied for the program around January-time, the person from AI who was finding me a job was at times slow to respond to my emails but did make a clear effort to find me an internship that suited what I wanted to get out of my experience (any job in marketing). I had secured the job by the end of February and AI's payment scheme meant that I only paid the total amount once I'd secured the right internship for me. When I'd arrived in Lisbon, the AI coordinator taking us was very quick at responding to my messages, and I was repeatedly reassured that if there were any issues I had with any aspect of the course, I should let the coordinator know as soon as possible, which was helpful.

As someone who was concerned about whether this company were legit or not (and if I'd just paid a large sum of money to a bunch of scammers), I was relieved to find early on that they were as legit as I'd hoped, and most of the others on the course had found AI through their universities, which was also reassuring. I was satisfied with the quality of AI's care and support, although I know that there were others that were unsatisfied with some responses to their more serious issues (e.g. they really didn't want to continue with their internships but AI couldn't find them another one).

I was the only Brit and European on my course, with the others coming from North America, South East Asia and the Middle East - they were all a great group of people and we did quite a few activities together, which was nice. The social side of this trip was great and although it was a bit lonely to start with, as expected, I'm really good friends with many of the people I met on this course - no need to worry about whether you'll make friends or not!

Overall I would highly recommend the Lisbon trip! As someone who has been on a poorly run internship scheme before, AI definitely offered a professional internship scheme that I'm grateful I went on and was worth the money in my opinion.