CIEE Study Center in Seville, Spain - Business & Society Internship

The first day, I was so excited to start work and meet all of my department: all men and engineers, which intimidated me a bit. After a few days of reading catalogues and web pages to learn everything I could about elevators, the company, and the industry, I received my first tasks. I had to translate some letters to English clients and take pictures of some changes for the new catalogue. I was alarmed by the amount of responsibility they had given me, but I worked as hard as I could, completing the tasks as well as possible.

I worked so hard and felt very proud of my success. As you can imagine, for a student, without knowledge of the city, the language or marketing, to obtain such a position was an honor, fun, and also, very difficult. I have experienced interest, sadness, enthusiasm, happiness, and much more...even angry, one day I went to the office and no one was there. I’d taken the bus almost an hour there to turn around and go home. But, in the end, I couldn’t imagine a better business with which I would want to intern. My boss is the coolest. My co-workers are friendly and helpful. I love our products. And better than anything, I have learned a ton of Spanish.

John Nemz, Purdue University, Spring 2007
My search for an internship in Sevilla began in January with the internship forum. I arrived at the hotel where the forum would be held, excited and with high hopes, though I didn’t really have anything to offer these Spanish companies. Being a sophomore I hadn’t taken any finance or real business classes yet, nor had I had prior experience with internships. Yet, I was still hopeful and very excited to interview with these businesses.

Then one morning I received a call requesting I return to Intermón Oxfam for an additional interview. My first interview wasn’t successful and another student got the position, yet here they were calling me back to speak with them again. I interviewed briefly with Elena, the event planner, and within minutes I was the new activities assistant. This made me feel great about myself because I had plenty of relevant experience with all the event planning I did back home and at school. Additionally, I felt as if they created this position just for me after seeing all the experience I had, so it made me even more excited to work with this humanitarian organization.

The weeks went by and little by little I completed my assignments for our big event in May. “Un Día Para La Esperanza” is a festival that every large city in Spain has so that the community can celebrate the fact that we can change the world and to share all the opportunities available to help those people in need throughout the world. That Sunday morning I woke up early and got to the event site at a local park. I was in charge of the volunteers so as the morning progressed and volunteers arrived, I distributed t-shirts, the day’s assignments, buttons to wear, and food coupons. It was the perfect day. I would never forget, especially because it was such a huge success and I felt like a movie star. Everyone was constantly looking for me to find out where they could help, get their shirts, and of course, get the free food coupons. I tried to do my best to seem less foreign so I put “Juan” on my name tag to try and blend in a little bit more. However, as the day progressed I realized that everyone was calling me “John” anyway and they wanted to interact with me because I was different. I soon embraced this fact and it made all the difference as I shared stories about Chicago and the United States with my new Sevillano friends. Before I knew it, the day came to end and it was time to go home.

We had shared some really great times at our events, campaigns, and in the office. All the experiences I shared with Intermón Oxfam over the past semester made my time abroad even better than I could have hoped for. I will never forget changing the world, one event at a time.