Hello, my name is Riccardo, I’m 20 years old, I’m from Italy and I would like to tell you my internship in Cork, Ireland.
With the help of Erasmus plus I had the opportunity to work abroad in Ireland for four months (with 24 other guys also from Italy), a once in lifetime opportunity that I couldn’t refuse. I knew that this experience would have a lot of difficulties such as live by yourself without any help from your parents and provide your own food. But I also had a problem that here in Ireland you have to be 21 to be considered a grown-up. This created a few issues because during the weekends we couldn’t enter in some pubs, it didn’t matter though as instead we organised to hangout in each others houses.
Over the course of my internship, I started to make friends with people from other countries that were housemates or colleagues and we spoke about the differences of our cultures, food, etc. This was the best part of the experience because you learn a lot of things from each other that you can’t know until you talk with people that actually live there. Also to be understood you have to speak English, so this was really helpful to improving my language skills.
Before my erasmus plus internship, I did an internship for one month in Paris. It was different because our meals were all already paid for and I was in a hotel, so you didn’t have to clean. This internship required me to fend for myself a lot more so in the very beginning I had a lot of obstacles! But i managed to overcome all of them, even with my dietary requirements as I’m celiac so I had to find the right places where I could buy something that was good for me. At first I wasn’t sure about how i’d get on my housemates from other countries but in the end I really enjoyed living with them and sharing life stories.
I also really enjoyed my job as a project assistant because even if it wasn’t what I asked for at the beginning, I had a lot of different tasks, for instance to go on a trip to Galway, so I’m happy that I didn’t have to do a monotonous job. Also the tutors are really patient and they helped me in every situation of difficulty and I will always be thankful to them. The only negative thing I can say is that in the office there are three other Italian speakers and so I spoke less English than I would have expected. Luckily though, I made friends with two colleagues whose mother tongues were English, so I spoke English as much as possible with them to exercise.
At the end of my time here I can say that I really enjoyed my experience and I already know that once I am back in Italy I will miss everything about Cork, even the rain and the annoying wind, because this is something you simple can’t forget! In the future I would like to do another internship, even if I’m not sure about when or where, I know I would love to have this kind of experience once again.
Want to gain work experience, improve your English language skills and explore Ireland? Then check out Partnership International’s internships programmes and start your Irish career adventure today!
