You want work experience, but you’re so over the idea of just fetching coffee and scanning documents. That’s obviously why you chose to intern abroad! You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t feel that inner drive to really expand your horizons and go beyond the norm. So, how do you go even further in your professional goals when you’re already interning abroad? We’ve got some serious internship advice for students looking to really go that extra mile that’s all focused around our favorite topic: cultural immersion!
Amidst all your butt-kicking during your internship, remember to take advantage of the unique cultural opportunities available to you.
If you’re wondering how to be a successful intern abroad, the key is to truly immerse yourself during the internship. Just having a job abroad is a great first step to really learning about a new culture, but many interns make the mistake of assuming it’s the end-all-be-all to local integration. Make the most of your international internship and stay culturally immersed during your internship abroad by following our tips below!
You’re abroad, you don’t want to isolate yourself from the culture, do you?
Just because you’re working doesn’t mean you’re there to only work! If you wanted to slave away at a boring 9-5, you would’ve stayed home. You chose to do your internship abroad because you obviously wanted more.
You’ll want to do as much as you can to get involved with your host country during your international internship to really make the most out of your time abroad. The good thing is that you will already be fairly immersed just from the nature of working in a different country, so whatever you do beyond that will just be maximizing cultural immersion while interning abroad!
5 cultural immersion strategies for inside the office
Make friends with locals—they always know the best sunset spots!
Cultural immersion begins with your day-to-day life! Make the most of your international internship by doing whatever you can to optimize your time on the clock, especially since this is where the bulk of your time in your host country will be spent.
1. Read up on business etiquette in your host country
The number one way to maximize cultural immersion while interning abroad is to start by not pissing off your new co-workers! You don’t want to unintentionally offend someone by doing something that you could have easily learned not to, so do your homework before your first day of work. You will become integrated into the organization by acting and dressing like part of it right from the get-go.
2. Do what your co-workers do
Along these same lines, a great way to get (and stay) culturally immersed during your internship abroad is to start by taking cultural hints from the people surrounding you. If your co-workers take a break every afternoon for tea time and are gracious enough to invite you along, accept! Even if you don’t like drinking tea or whatever activity they’re doing, this is part of their culture and not something to ignore. Not only do you risk hurting someone’s feelings by not participating, but you also don’t really know what you don’t like until you try it in your new home!
3. Get involved in as much as you can
Just because you’re hired to do a website migration project for your internship doesn’t mean you can only work on the website. If you really want to become immersed in your new culture, take on as much as you can for your employer and really sew yourself into the organization.
A great rule of thumb for integrating into your new home is the more people you get to know, the more immersed you’ll become. Who knows, Kevin in accounting might convince you to join his band and you’ll get to learn all about music in your host country. This type of exposure won’t happen if you don’t go out of your way to form relationships!
Don’t get so wrapped up in your internship responsibilities that you forget to get involved with your host country
4. Join company groups or clubs
Does your employer offer any type of employee perks like cricket teams, workout clubs, or special-interest groups? Be sure to join whatever you can to learn how to be a successful intern. Even if your company just has a gym and no formal clubs or anything, at least use that! People bond over things that make them miserable - like exercising - so we bet you’ll make friends pretty quickly.
5. Initiate community involvement
If you’re interning for a large company, chances are they have some type of philanthropic activity they do in the local community. If this is the case, get involved! If not, start something! A foreigner looking from the outside in might be able to identify opportunities to help that locals may brush over. Not to give you a “savior complex” or anything...you just offer different perspectives and skills, and you should put those to use if it can help someone else and immerse you more!
[Download our free E-Book on tips for first-time interns abroad!]
5 strategies for cultural immersion when you clock out
Find meetup groups full of folks with like-minded interests
All work and no play makes Jack a dull intern! The majority of true cultural immersion will actually happen outside of the office, so use these tips to help with your off-the-clock socialization. You’ll only get so much immersion from being in the office, so if you want to stay culturally immersed during your internship abroad, you have to work at it during your off hours. Read on for more internship advice for students abroad.
1. Connect with your co-workers outside the office
The first place you should go is right to the source: your co-workers! Just because you work together doesn’t also mean you can’t be friends, so do your best to get to know your teammates outside of the office. You’ll be spending upwards of 40 hours a week together, so might as well get close with them, and by extension, close with your new culture. Plus, locals always know where the best restaurants, bars, and places to hang out are, so you’ll most likely get some kickass happy hour deals out of this!
2. Join local sports teams, clubs, or special interest groups to make friends
Have a hobby that you want to take abroad with you? Or maybe you’re looking to pick up a brand-new hobby or skill while abroad. Either way, participating in some type of extracurricular in your host country is an excellent way to make local friends and immerse yourself more!
It doesn’t even have to be any huge time commitment or anything intense - you can join a soccer team that practices once a week or a cooking club that meets once a month. Don’t stop at just sports or clubs...join a local church or a “Moroccans in Argentina” cultural group to meet even more locals and integrate your new home into your own religious or cultural affiliations!
3. Use Tinder (with caution) to find local friends
There are tons of apps nowadays to connect people, including ones as specific as study abroad students, expats, digital nomads, or just travelers in general. Take advantage of our constantly-connected world to stay culturally immersed during your internship abroad—use these social media tools to your benefit! Obviously you want to use these apps to meet locals, not just find a bunch of fellow foreigners, so talk to locals to find out what type of social media is the most popular in your host region and then USE IT. Don’t waste your time on Tinder if everyone in Mexico prefers Snapchat!
Typical dating apps, when used with proper caution, can be a great tool to meet locals.
4. Learn what makes your new home unique
As fun as it is, making friends and doing social activities aren’t the only ways to get involved with your host country during your international internship. Spend time going to museums, visiting art galleries, watching movies, attending performances, participating in religious activities, and learning about your region’s history.
Providing context to what you’re trying to integrate into can only help you, especially if your new home has overcome (or is overcoming) any type of cultural or political issue. Your new friends will help expose you to some of these things, but it’s ultimately up to you to do your homework while abroad and really learn the ins and outs of your host culture.
5. Get out there and explore
You never know what you’ll experience or who you’ll meet just by adventuring around your new home. Some of the best friendships and most profound experiences can happen where you least expect them, so break out of that comfort zone and hit the town.
Our biggest internship advice for students is to use your downtime outside of the office to really get to know your new home. Take a train across the city just to see what’s on the other side. Go see a local band at the pub around the corner even if your new friends are busy. Relax in a park downtown and join in that round of frisbee happening near you. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you’re expanding your horizons!
There’s more to life than working
You’re going abroad to work, not vacation. We get it. We know you’ll want to really dig deep and impress your employer, BUT don’t work so much that you lose sight of all the other reasons you are interning abroad. You should return home with pride from the work you accomplished, the relationships you formed, and the experiences you had both on and off the clock. Don’t sell yourself short by never leaving the office, and stay conscious towards your ability to be culturally immersed during your internship abroad.
You’re ready to find the right balance of work, learning, and play while interning abroad!
Immersion can happen from all areas of your life, not just your internship placement, so be sure to really focus on integrating into the community both professionally and personally. Ultimately, your internship experience is yours to make what you want of it, not your boss or your program provider, so you’ll figure out how to be a successful intern by doing what fits you the best!
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