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Our intern Iina shares the highlights of her 4-month internship at Asia Exchange
I’m Iina (not Lina; people always make that mistake, haha), and I did my 4-month internship at Asia Exchange. If you have emailed or called our customer service this spring, there is a good chance you have spoken with me. I’m a 23-year-old Finnish university student majoring in general and adult education. During my free time, I go to the gym, play guitar, explore my beautiful home city of Tampere, and try not to kill my house plants. I’m especially interested in international education, which is the reason I applied for an internship at Asia Exchange. I had the most amazing time working for the company, and here is why.
Interesting and versatile tasks
When I started my internship in January 2021, my official title was administrative intern. My initial tasks included application processing, customer service, and other administrative tasks. However, I ended up doing so much more. I got involved in marketing and content creation (for example writing these blog posts), organized and hosted a webinar with my co-worker Ida, and helped our sales and relationship manager Joonas to recruit a new intern. I had a lot of freedom choosing tasks that I’m interested in. That is definitely one of the greatest perks of working for a start-up-like company.
During these four months, I have gotten a chance to attend interesting meetings, interact with students from all over the world, and learn about international student mobility. In addition to working hard, we also had office morning walks, virtual happy hours on Teams, and other non-work-related events during my internship. If I’m being honest, these things were the best part of my internship!
Amazing co-workers
Asia Exchange has undoubtedly the warmest and most encouraging work environment I have ever worked in. Every Asia Exchange team member from top management to interns has been welcoming and helpful from day one. The thing that surprised me the most, was the fact that interns are viewed as important members of the team. I feel like my opinions are valued in the company, and we have had a lot of interesting extempore brainstorming sessions at the office with Asia Exchange co-founder Harri.
Our team is multicultural and located all over Europe and Asia. Most of us are working from Finland, Bali, or the Philippines, and our team members represent many different nationalities. I haven’t met most of my team members face-to-face, but we keep in touch daily on Teams. Working in an international environment has brought me a lot of courage and cultural knowledge I would not have gained if I had only worked with other Finnish people. Even though we work hard, we also have fun every day. On top of that, I have made amazing friends from all over the world.
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Meaningful internship
The best thing about working for Asia Exchange? The feeling you can do something meaningful. Promoting student mobility and helping students to gain life-changing study abroad experiences motivate me to do my best every single day. I love that I can make Asia Exchange student’s study abroad experience a bit easier and less stressful. It’s also amazing to see our students’ photos and hear their stories from their study abroad destinations. Studying abroad can be the most important journey a person can make. I feel lucky that I have had a chance to be part of our students’ journeys.
All in all, I can honestly say that my internship at Asia Exchange made my spring 2021 so much better. I became more confident with my English, I got to experience what it’s like to work for a start-up-like company, and I met amazing people who will (hopefully!) stay in my life also after my internship ends. Thank you, Asia Exchange family <3
Interested in working at Asia Exchange? Read more about open positions here.
Asia Exchange is a Finnish company providing study abroad opportunities in Asia Pacific for students from all around the world. Want to get travel tips and new blog posts straight to your inbox? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter! If you have any questions about studying abroad, feel free to contact us! We’ll get back to you as soon as possible.
