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My internship experience in Spain: work & learn
My name is Jarkko Mikkola. I come from Finland and at the moment I am doing an internship in Bilbao, Spain. Before I came here I was working in Finland as a teacher of Finnish. I worked with a lot of people from various countries, and because of my experiences with them and for of all the things that I saw there I wanted to do something similar, that is, work and live in another country.
At the university I studied Finnish, drama in education, writing, psychology and languages. With all the things that I had studied my future seemed relatively open, and I understood that I could spend a few months perfecting my knowledge and immersing myself in another culture, without having to worry needlessly about what I would do afterwards. I chose Spain as my destination because of my experiences here. Also, since I already knew the language quite well Spain seemed more than perfect for what I was looking for. I found a web page of a Spanish language school on the Internet where it said that they were looking for people with intermediate level of Spanish to do an internship in the city of Bilbao. I quit my job as a teacher and travelled to the north of Spain.
I have been in Bilbao for two months now and I have to admit that I´m quite liking it. I have learned a lot about the language as well as the culture, both Spanish and Basque. However, what I have realised most of all during my time as an intern is that the human being is capable of learning a great amount, and that there is no reason for losing hope even though at times it may seem like life is not working out just as well as it should. After all, what you need when you are doing an internship in another country is time and confidence.
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