I’ve
now been home for a little over a week now. I don’t know if I can quite sum up
my experience in Ireland just yet, but I know that I’m glad I could go. My
coworkers were simply amazing and I learned so much more from them than I
expected. I really could not have asked for a better placement; then again, I’d
really left that in God’s hands so there’s really no wonder why it was the
proper place. I can only hope that I helped them as much as they helped me.
Ireland in general is just a very nice country, really very welcoming and easy
going. I even made some very good friends from my fellow wahoos and hope that
we will continue to spend time together during my last year. I really enjoyed
travelling around the Irish countryside. I really like being able to go into a
different lifestyle.
While
I may still not know what job or profession I should pursue when I graduate,
this internship has answered some of my questions. Can I live abroad? Yes (and
enjoy it). Can I work abroad? Yes. What is the best kind of work environment
for me? One where I can converse with my coworkers. The set-up of the Integration
Centre is very similar to that of my Semester at Sea job at UVA, and I think
that I really need social interaction for me to do well. Now, obviously I can
work alone, but I don’t think I would enjoy that anywhere near as much as when
I’m working with others. Could I work in immigration? I could, though I would
have to become very, very familiar with US laws concerning immigration in order
to be helpful at all. It would definitely be a very interesting field to work
in, so I will definitely keep that in the cards. Perhaps I may even become an
anthropologist but honestly, I don’t know where I will end up. So for the
moment I’m back home, preparing for my last year at UVA, which will hopefully
be the best. Then I will finally leave school, enter the ‘real world’ and see
what adventures await me. Thank you to everyone who read this blog and vicariously
lived my journey with me. It was very encouraging to see that people were
reading and I hope that you enjoyed them!
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| Alex and I at the wedding - we're both heading out into the real world this year bum bum bummmm |
