[…] The organization that took care of us – Stage Malta – also provided us with a few hours of private English classes per week. Once a few days, a teacher meets us, who – knowing our level of language – in a practical way through tasks, matching sentences to the situation or role playing, develops our abilities and language certainty. More importantly, during classes – for fairly obvious reasons, because the teacher comes from Malta – we are only in English, which makes them even more valuable. So we have a unique opportunity to make cuts in our language skills, all in a relaxed atmosphere. Classes began even before we went to our places of work in order to explain any doubts if necessary and to help us start a dialogue with an employer who will surely want to know something more about us […].

“[…] Cardiff as a city positively surprised me with its multicultural side. Because one of my interest is Asian culture I had the chance to meet with people from Asia and taste theirs cuisine. It was quite new for me because in Poland there are not so many foreigners. Summarising the whole internship, it surely will be one of the most important things in my life. It was my first stay abroad and my first job in a multicultural environment. During my internships, I not only improved my skills, but also get to feel more confident. In Cardiff,
I have got few new friends and I hope I will keep in touch with them.”

“I will remember Portugal for many years! When we got to Lisbon we were picked up by our mentor Cris. The first impressions were very mixed, starting with fear, ending with a big smile on the face and a great excitement with a new adventure! ….Cris helped us with every problem to the very end and tried to ease internal and external disputes […]. Cris took us on many trips and also told us a lot about Portuguese culture. Thanks to this I met many new people, visited places and got to know a new culture!…  As my tasks I had to deal with ATMs, getting to know them from the inside, as well as programming. And that’s how the days in Portugal passed by […].”

“With some opening words, I can personally say that the internship was great, and I rate it as overwhelmingly positive. I started the internship with a mind set of “I don’t care. Whatever needs to happen, will happen”. At that time I was still living the final exams, stressing over if I’m going to pass them or not […].
I realized that the internship was an opportunity for me to really leave my home, the town I grew up in, and my country and culture. And that it won’t be just some time that I have to spend in different places like in school or during a school-internship, clocking in every day at the job, and doing boring things that probably won’t help me in the future. This was the first time I could see how an IT company works in practice, the first time I could really use the English language in practice, the first time I could see a vastly different culture […].
The work itself was great  and I feel like I haven’t wasted that time thanks to my Boss, Pedro… And the park itself was a really great place. I couldn’t imagine such a positive environment. It was different from the “Corp.” environment which is usually shown in the movies, where people spend their whole days in cubicles and don’t talk much to each other. It was interesting to see people enjoying their time, talking in the hallways, together watching football (the Portugal match sure was an unique experience), or eating in the cafeteria […]. Summarising, it surely was an experience I won’t forget for years.”

“[…] At work I met many nice people with whom I could talk and laugh – there was a really nice atmosphere. The hotel manager turned out to be very nice as well as the staff. Coming to the internship, at first I was afraid it might not be good, but it turned out completely different! I realised with time that one of my fears, the language, was not such a barrier and that my English was actually not bad […].”

“[…] At the beginning I was full of fears, due to many new things and new people. It turned out to be unnecessary. Already after the first day it turned out that the hotel staff are very kind, understanding and helpful […].”

“Coming to Bologna what I was most afraid of was the language barrier and that I would not be able to get along at work […]. Another worry when traveling to work was: “how I would get along with my boss and what kind of work had he planned for me?” After the first day of work all doubts were solved […]. My job consisted in servicing phones and computers and selling accessories for them. I improved my English – at work I mostly used this language- and I have learned as well the basics of Italian when it comes to servicing devices.”

“Arriving in Bologna,  the first days had a familiar feeling!  Despite the language and cultural barrier, we felt integrated after less than a week. Using the days off, we decided to get acquainted with the area and visit the central part of the city, which by the way is very charming and intriguing […]. Each day would follow another with interesting tasks, such as: testing transmission modules, assembling elements of electronic boards or soldering subassemblies. The co-workers were very nice to us, sociable and helping. From day to day, we learned something new about the topic related to our profession and the company’s prosperity […].”

„[…] We started our work on Saturday with the knowledge of our supervisor, who presented the general project idea, our tasks and showed us around the foundation. All employees are friendly and helpful. Our task at project time is to transfer the database from the FileMaker program to the more modern Microsoft SQL Server. It is a very labor-intensive and demanding operation […].”

“[…] I work at Nick Bugeja Creative Agency. It deals with the creation of websites and their improvement, error correction and editing. I work on many projects at the same time – there is no place for monotony or boredom. We create websites mainly based on the content management system – WordPress […].”

„[…] During my internship I have the opportunity to see patterns of operation of a foreign facility and get to know all the customer service techniques in a restaurant and bar, because it is in these places that I do my internship. A waitress’s job is a heavy piece of bread that requires a lot of discipline, empathy, patience and self-control that has been put to the test many times. Multitasking and working under time pressure are something that I often have to face when handling customers in a full restaurant […].”