Dubai is the best

Getting the opportunity to go to Dubai and doing an internship there was something that I didn't even know was possible, but finding Intern in Dubai online was something that I was intrigued by and wanted to find out more about.

During the first call that I had with their team it was quite clear that they had great relationships in the city and were focused on helping students like me gain new skills and experience in Dubai. Coming from a marketing background it was great to hear about some of the companies they worked with and also some of the opportunities that I could potentially be getting involved with. A few days after having the initial interview I received an email back telling me that I had been accepted onto the program!

Having persuaded my family to help with the costs of the program I paid my deposit and booked in for my initial online training course. The first part of the course was designed to find out about my skills - what I was good at l, what I wasn't good at, and things like that. Some of the questions were really easy l, while others were quite technical and challenging. I got my results back just a few days after doing the course and the report that it came with was kind of eye-opening because of some of the basic skills that I was lacking, but also reassuring because I knew what I would need to work on to get the most from the internship.

About 6 weeks before I was due to leave I got my first job offer and l was really excited. I was going to be a marketing intern at a radio station! Before you can accept the role you have to talk to the company to make sure it's a good fit and learn more. The role sounded great, focusing on social media, and writing content for the website. After accepting it I got a welcome pack and my advisor helped me get my visa.

The visa process was quite tricky because I was in the middle of renewing my passport, but soon enough I was heading into Dubai.

When I arrived, I was met at the airport by a driver who took me straight across to the student housing. The housing was great, lots of other interns and students were living there and the community on the whole environment was amazing. The building was brand new or maybe a year or so old and the facilities were crazy, we had our own swimming pool, we had a cinema for streaming, we had indoor lounges and pool table areas, and the rooms were really modern and clean, so I couldn't have been happier.

Dubai was something more than I had imagined.

The city is actually quite small compared to how big I thought it was but everything is in different areas, so if you want to go to the beaches you head over to the coast side and there are lots of different beaches like JBR and Kite beach which are amazing with warm blue water and lovely sand. If you prefer to go out then also around the marina, the difc and JBR there are lots of bars and places spend an afternoon or an evening which we did a few times and was great fun. Drinks can be quite expensive but all of the bars and especially the rooftop bars have amazing views and the atmosphere is really good, very very different from home.

Before arriving I was a little worried about the heat but everyone told me that I was lucky that I was coming before the main summer which just started now, so the weather was actually really nice every day and I could just wear a tank and maybe shorts or leggings and never felt cold and definitely didn't feel too hot.

Working at the radio station was a really great experience I worked five days a week, starts at 10 o'clock and normally my day will involve going in sitting in with team meetings at the start of each day planning the day ahead and then getting to work. A lot of my work was writing content and posting content on social media, going out taking photos of guests in the studio when they arrived, but also writing up reports and interviews of some of the guests that came in, which was really exciting and something I had never done before. Most of the DJs at the station were originally from the UK and Australia so it was really easy to get along and get to know everybody and there was definitely no sort of language barrier in fact practically everybody in Dubai spoke English which I didn't expect but made it really easy to get along with everyone and travel around.

My time in Dubai was definitely a success but it also went by very very quickly. A lot of the things that I'd heard about Dubai before travelling were really not true. For instance it isn't expensive and it really does depend on the type of way you want to live. For me I really enjoyed going out with my friends spending time on the beach at weekends traveling around and seeing the city and most of that didn't cost anything or very little at all. On the other hand if you do prefer to go out to boil a lot during the evenings especially the ones in some of the more famous hotels then it can become quite expensive but we did things like that just every once in a while as a treat and it I think it also helped us enjoy things more and appreciate the opportunity that we had to be in Dubai more.

Some of the things that I did find out about Dubai while I was there. First, the people. I really found the people to be kind, generous with their time and really really helpful. Number 2 I'd say was safety I wasn't really sure especially as this was my first time travelling to the Middle East how safe things would be, but I didn't feel unsafe at any point and really really loved the fact that everyone in Dubai seems to be honest and trying to help other people around them. I think the third best thing about Dubai would be the variety of things you can do there are literally hundreds of different things that you can do after work or at the weekends and this made for a really great experience.

Overall I'd rate my experience a 10 out of 10, easily a 10 out of 10. I had an amazing time, got to meet some really lovely people, got great work experience and finally had an opportunity to explore a part of the world that I always wanted to visit, and was really really surprised by.