How did you end up abroad?

Everyone has a story, maybe this is the time to share it.

- “We are a small office. Sarah and I make sure to equip the fridge and we have lunch all together. We take turns every day to make the table. We do not offer a salary for intern positions, but we will take care of your accommodation, so you don't have to worry about that. You will be working with Victoria...”

All this time I was thinking: this guy is talking as if this is a done deal. But this is only the first interview. This sounds too good to be true. I need to be 100% sure I haven’t misunderstood.

- “Sorry to put pressure on you, but the university requires these documents to be signed within a week from now. Do you think this is possible?”
- “Yes, just send them to me and you will have them right back. If you need anything else, just reach out and Sarah will help you out”.

I switched off Skype¹ and the laptop. While getting up from the desk, my shirt was drenched with sweat. Not only that, but the shirt didn't have any drawings or any design to trick the eyes. It was solid blue color and you could see the sweat forming huge ponds of water on it.

- “How did it go?”, my mom who realized the interview was over, asked.
- “I think I am going to Norway.”

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About a month before the interview, my best friend had urged me to go to a presentation by Erasmus+. For those of you who are not familiar with Erasmus, it is an organization that coordinates exchanges of students, between European universities. Erasmus+ extends to universities outside Europe, but also internships.

He urged me to go, because I had decided I wanted to pursue further studies abroad. He had also helped me look for MSc programmes. His argument was -and he was right, that internships count in your favor, if you want to get accepted in a good university. Plus, it doesn’t hurt to get some experience. I had already found a couple of MSc degrees that were interesting and indeed the admission looked competitive. So, getting some bonus points didn't sound like a bad idea.

The presentation was indeed very helpful. They went through how the Erasmus+ program can help you get an internship, the benefits that it offers and the relevant deadlines. And the deadlines were close. Like, very close.

Leaving the presentation, excitement and stress were the prominent emotions. Excitement, because I saw a great opportunity to try out an internship abroad at a small cost. Stress, because the deadline to apply, get a position and have the company fill the necessary paperwork, was in a month. At the same time, the end of my MSc thesis was approaching. To put it simply, time was not on my side.

Every moment counted. And I had to make every moment count. 

At the best case scenario, a company would need at least a week to fill the necessary paperwork for Erasmus+². Interview processes take weeks, but maybe I could hope that internship applications are processed faster³. Best case scenario: another week. The deadline for the paperwork submission was in a month, aka 4 weeks. If paperwork and interview process needed two weeks, I needed to have landed interviews the latest, in two weeks time.

If you found that confusing, worry not. My amazing PowerPoint skills are coming to the rescue:

The time plan of the internship application process.

I decided to take a calculated risk: I would pause my thesis work for two weeks and apply to as many positions as possible.

If no replies came back within the first two weeks, I would give up. If I had any replies, but had not landed a position after 3 weeks, I would again give up. This way I would take my (very long) shot, spending the absolute bare minimum amount of time. 

Now at least I had a plan. Not a very promising one, but a plan nevertheless⁴.

But it was still very tight. I had two weeks to land interviews and I didn't even have a CV ready to send out. I didn't have a list of companies to contact. I did not have a cover letter. I had to make every moment count. 

Driving home from the presentation I was trying to think how I could make the best use of my time. 

It was already early afternoon when I arrived home. It could take at least a couple of days of work before I had a CV and a cover letter ready, as well as a few interesting companies to contact. Luckily my university had provided a list of other universities that offered internships. That could be a starting point.

I estimated that at least 1.5 full days of work were needed, before sending the first application. If I started working the next morning, I would expect to send applications at the end of the 2nd business day. Since everyone would be off for the rest of the day, the receiving institutions would not open them before day three. If however I started working on the applications now, the first ones could be sent the following night. They would then be opened on the beginning of day two. That meant that the first applications would reach the potential hiring managers one day earlier. It also meant that I would need to stay up all night to pull that off. But with such tight deadlines, one day could make a difference. 

Confused again? No stress, some more PowerPoint awesomeness⁵ is coming your way:

Timetable of work schedule. With option B, the first application would be opened a day earlier.

And that is how it happened. To earn a business day, I started working the same day. That night I slept around 7am. That kicked off a two-week period of waking up at 1-3pm and working from 4 till early morning.

If my memory serves me right, 83 applications left my mailbox, to universities and companies combined. Two companies replied with interview invites. One of them stood me up twice and eventually the interview never happened⁶. The second one was the one from a small company in Norway. And you already know what happened in that one.

Image by Dean Moriarty from Pixabay

So here I was, after a couple of weeks of intense overnight shifts, an internship in Norway was awaiting. Not in Oslo by the way. In a small town in the south of the country, that did not exceed 50.000 residents⁷. 

No need to go into too much detail about the internship. I want to mention though that, the people were amazing. They welcomed me as if I were working with them for years. The fact that the internship was such a nice experience, was one of the reasons that pushed me to pursue a career in renewables and stay abroad. They also gave me a bike, which got stolen a couple of days later. But that is a story for another time…

What is YOUR story? If you are living abroad, how did you end up there? If not, did you ever think of trying it out?

1. Yes that was long ago, when Skype was still the preferred video-conference software.

2. Having now experienced the corporate world, I can see how optimistic this sounds.

3. Again in hindsight, this is also true.

4. On a personal note, having a plan helps me focus. Running around trying to fix everything, without clear steps and goal, stresses me out. So in this scenario where time was very limited, having a plan made a world of a difference.

5. Seriously, I am an engineer. What did you expect?

6. I still remember this vividly. Looking back, that was a major red flag and I probably dodged a bullet.

7. Still doesn’t.

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