My experience at Archi

I interned in Archipelagos for 6 months, some of the most formative and life-changing months of my life. Samos was a truly magical experience, the kind I would wish on everyone at least once in their life. The people I met and the friends I made, will stay with me forever, this much I know for certain. If you want my opinion, I’ll talk on three aspects of life in Archipelagos.
First off, the technical side. If you’re like me, the first thing you would look for in an internship are the transferrable skills you would gain. The work experience bit. As someone who went there as part of my placement year, I believe the skills I got were extremely useful. I worked as a marine mammal research intern, which meant I got to go on boat surveys, learn how to recognize behaviour, species identification, and processing boat survey data. Aside from this, having personal projects meant that you could focus on something that you were interested in, adding to the research part of the experience. The supervisors were always super helpful, and would organize little workshops from time to time, for example programming with R, RavenPro, QGIS, SOCPROG etc., in addition to helping you navigate these softwares if you had a project that involved using it. These software skills are things that I would not have picked up in uni otherwise. We are also encouraged to join other teams on surveys even if you are part of just one, so we get to try a little bit of everything- I’ve been on many terrestrial surveys for example, as well as received snorkel survey training.
Secondly, the environmental aspect. It’s a quiet, magical little island, and I will say you have to be openminded and willing to accept it. There are no big cities, but it’s filled with beautiful greenery and amazing people. It has many beautiful hikes, and snorkelling in the crystal clear blue waters of the Aegean with diverse flora and fauna moments away from your fingertips is a crazy experience- if you’re joining the marine ecology team as well! With marine mammals, we have one of the last thriving subpopulations in the Mediterranean of the common short beaked dolphin, a species I saw quite a lot on my surveys.
Thirdly, and most importantly for me, the social aspect. I came with an indifferent mind, and left truly inspired, having worked with so many people who were genuinely so passionate and likeminded about conservation- it was just so infectious. The connections I made were invaluable, for the work aspect of things and otherwise. I met people from all over the world, made friends for life that I may not meet ever again- or possibly would! You never know, but that’s part of making these connections, if some day, I decide to visit the other end of the world, I will always have somebody. The locals have so many stories, if you sit to listen, and the most random things happened. I walked out of there knowing how to make density maps in QGIS, combing honey, burying a dearly beloved dog, analysing dolphin whistles, harvesting olives, learning about political affairs, planting lettuce, and learning about the simplicity and beauty of life- but that’s just me.
As you might have seen from other reviews, it may also have its problems, but its nothing that has really fazed me. They constantly take feedback to improve, the food for example has improved so much since I have been there, still continues to do so. You just have to come with an open mind, it is not a five star hotel, and you are not going to get everything exactly as you want, especially if you are accustomed to an urban life- but that is also why I think it would be good try it out. I believe it’s good work they are carrying out there, and I hope you get to see it for yourself.