Alumni Perspective: Jacob Botelho
Jacob Botelho, an American University student, writes about interning abroad in Amman, Jordan with the King Hussein Foundation’s Institute for Family Health (IFH) while studying abroad. Jacob now interns for CET Academic Programs and shares his experience in this piece.
Studying abroad can be one of the most important events for a student during their college experience. Many students (including myself) didn’t have the opportunity to travel to or live in other countries before they chose to study abroad, so this new experience can hold a lot of uncertainty. So naturally, when most students are presented with the chance of working an internship while studying abroad many students understandably opt out. Who would want to deal with the stress of adjusting to a completely foreign culture, study for class, learn a new language, and have to worry about going to an internship? It’s a lot to put on your plate, especially those who aren’t used to travelling.
For students who may be anxious about applying for CET Jordan’s internship program, let me tell you from my own personal experience that it is an enjoyable and invaluable opportunity that will help develop your professional skills, meet new people, and learn a bit more about Jordanian culture and society. It’d like to encourage you to toss your stress to the wayside and embrace this opportunity if you are studying abroad with CET in Jordan.
My CET Jordan Internship Experience
Before I boarded the plane headed to Jordan, I didn’t have a very good idea of what my study abroad experience would look like. While CET gave me extremely detailed instructions of what my main challenges would be and how to travel and live in Jordan safely, I didn’t know exactly what the day to day would look like as I had never experienced anything like studying abroad. Even though I felt like I was going into this experience blind, I had still decided to sign up for the internship program.
For those who are unaware about the specifics of the program, CET Jordan offers to connect students with an internship for an organization chosen based on the student’s professional preferences. CET will then organize an interview. If it goes well and the organization thinks the student is a good fit, the student will be able to work on site or online while they are studying abroad.
While it sounded like a great opportunity to add something to my woefully lacking resume at the time, I was still very unsure of whether it was worth it. As mentioned previously, I had not studied or traveled abroad before this experience. I had also never worked in a professional office environment before. Especially for my degree in international relations, I would have to get used to offices eventually.
Jumping into my Internship
Despite my doubts, I decided to take the chance and sign up. The moment I arrived in Amman my worries started to dissipate. The CET team in Jordan proved to me within the first day that all my classmates and I were in good hands, and that they’d help us with adjusting to Jordanian culture, learning Arabic, and juggling our academic and extra-curricular activities. I knew that if I ever had any trouble or stress related to my internship or adjusting to the work culture, I could go to them.
This gave me the confidence I needed to start working with my head held high, which I proceeded to do as I walked into the first day of my internship. Despite my initial confidence, the first couple of weeks of my internship wasn’t a walk in the park. It was not only my first internship experience, but I worked in multiple different departments inside of a massive office building for a very well renowned humanitarian organization in Jordan.
The organization I interned for was the King Hussein Foundation’s Institute for Family Health. The Institute for Family Health (IFH) is a non-profit organization funded in part by the government and royal family in Jordan and helped conduct psychosocial support services and research all around Jordan for disadvantaged communities.
Suffice it to say, this was an organization that did a lot of important work for people who need it the most in Jordan and was certainly an intimidating place to start my professional career. On top of this, only most people who worked for the organization spoke Arabic, putting my initially very limited understanding of colloquial Arabic to the test.
Learning to see the Importance of My Internship
Despite all these initial hurdles, as time went on and I acclimated to this new and daunting work environment, things began to change for the better after my first few weeks. Working in a mainly Arabic-speaking environment three days a week substantially improved my Arabic. Conversations I’d have with people while going to and while at work and with taxi drivers turned from feigned attempts at communication in broken Arabic to proper conversations about politics, sports, and religion. Talking to my co-workers went from everyone immediately going to the one person in the room who spoke English to help me out to me asking English speaking co-workers to only speak to me in Arabic.
My work-life balance improved drastically as well. During the first few weeks, I would feel stressed about the work I needed to do and having to go to the office. Even though it wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things, this unfamiliar environment added unneeded stress to the already anxiety-inducing experience of studying abroad. After a couple of weeks, I started to feel the groove of the internship-class balance. It started to feel more like my internship experience was just another class, on top of the class I had to take in conjunction with my internship as well.
I feel that time solves all problems. If you keep your head up and push through hard times, eventually the work becomes easier, and you’ll eventually learn to love the routine. Without the dedication and discipline to go to the office every week, I would not have had this invaluable experience under my belt. At the end of the experience, I felt that I had gained an invaluable professional experience. With the experience I had gained with the CET Jordan internship, I managed to secure three more internships throughout my time in college.
What I’ve Learned from My Experience, and What I Think is Important to Take Away from It
My advice to all prospective students who are contemplating participating in the internship program with CET Jordan is simple—if you feel like you may need the experience, do it. With uncertainty and confusion underlining the current state of the job market in the United States, getting as much internship experience as you can before you graduate is as important as ever. The chance to intern in another country doesn’t come up often, and it will look great on a resume, especially if you are applying for jobs which value international experience and foreign language comprehension.
Since my participation in the CET internship program, I have had many other internship opportunities presented to me after the fact that I would most likely have not been able to come by if it weren’t for my internship experience in Jordan. I have used my former internship supervisor as a reference and have talked about my experience in almost every interview I have had after the fact.
While I found this experience to be beneficial on both a personal and professional level, I do recommend students be wary of the workload commitment before jumping in. While workloads vary depending on the internship, a large workload on top of the already intensive afterschool work given by CET Jordan may not be manageable for everyone. It is important for students to understand what they may be getting into. Even though it can be a lot, I never found it completely unmanageable, but it is something to consider.
While it’s important to make sure you won’t be too stressed during study abroad, through CET Jordan you can find a great balance between work, school, and having fun with friends. It’s an opportunity you won’t get many chances to take, so you might as well give it a go. There’s nothing to lose, and a lot to gain both professionally and personally.
Interested in learning about studying abroad in Jordan? Spend a semester or summer living in Amman—known for being the capital and largest city of Jordan. CET Jordan study abroad students can strengthen their Arabic through a language pledge, pursue directed research or an internship, and immerse themselves in daily life with the help of language partners. Learn more about CET Jordan.