Famiglia
Working in a multicultural team
Internship for community development: read Alessandra’s story
Alessandra Grendene, 28, is a member of AIESEC – the world’s largest student driven organization. Last year she joined an AIESEC international internship.
– What are you studying? Which university are you attending? I graduated last year in management for companies (master degree) at the Cattolica University in Milan.
– What kind of internship did you choose and why? I chose the development traineeship, which is quite short. As I didn’t have a lot of experience abroad, I preferred to choose a brief internship.
– What was your internship about exactly? It was a project titled “Express your knowledge”, with the aim to let Lublin’s high school students know both AIESEC and economic issues as the concept of entrepreneurship, of creative thought, bringing examples of successful entrepreneurs. Every day we went in the schools to give these workshops in English. They were very interactive: we always tried to involve the youths.
– How long did your internship last? Two months.
– Five things you learnt during the internship? I learnt to work in a multicultural team, to solve problems, to act in a difficult environment as Poland is, to speak in front of an audience and to teach what I studied at university.
– Why did you choose to go to Poland in particular? Because my hometown, which is Loreto, one of the main Catholic pilgrimage sites in the world, has a spiritual twinning with Czestochowa and I always heard really positive things about Polish people. I have also found the right project for me as development traineeship.
– What was the best moment of your experience? The best moments were those I lived with the committee of AIESEC LUBLIN (the Polish city where the internship took place). Over there I found very lovely people, the best I ever met.
– Would you change your experience in any way? No, I wouldn’t change it.
– Any suggestions for students who are about to leave on an AIESEC internship? I think that, before leaving, students should get information about the countries they want to go to.
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