My experience with IAESTE both abroad and locally has been irreplaceable. To be exposed to so many new ideas, cultures & viewpoints has tremendously broadened my world view. Besides, it was a ton of fun. Through IAESTE I now know familiar faces in Slovenia, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Italy, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, & Argentina to name a few. I have seen, smelled, & tasted a million things I wouldn't have otherwise had the chance to. With this opportunity so accessible to the NCSU student body, any student who is the least bit inclined toward programs like this should jump all over it. They won't regret it, I promise.

It took all of one IAESTE meeting for me to be hooked. Be able to travel and get paid for it…what more could I ask for? Turns out, when I look back on my experiences with IAESTE, those are not the highlights of the program. The people I was able to meet during my two internships abroad and the experience I gained far surpassed the initial benefits I anticipated. My first internship was to Dresden, Germany to work with a Materials Research Institute. Nothing I had done up to that point in my life could have prepared me for the challenges I faced the first few days, but everything I did was a victory, quickly making me feel extremely accomplished. This feeling helped create friendships easily, especially with the other interns and students living nearby. We decided every weekend that we wanted to travel to a new city, and most of the time IAESTE made this extremely easy, holding conferences and arranging trips all over Europe for us. As quickly as the experience started, it was over, full of tears and promises to see each other again. This has definitely held true, as we have continued to keep in touch and travel to each other's homes around the world more than three years later.

The second time I around I moved to Basel, Switzerland and decided to stay for a longer period of time since a summer had seemed to pass in an instant. Once again, I had a job that challenged me and taught me things I would have never been able to learn in the classroom. In a longer internship, I was able to learn more of the language and become a larger part of the community around me. The amazing people I was able to meet again made for the greatest memories of all.

I thought that because I was a Zoology major, I couldn't participate in IAESTE, which I thought was only for Engineering-types. However, at the urging of a friend, I joined, worked hard, went to the National Conference and now am writing this from Zurich, Switzerland, where I am now working in a Neurobiology lab. Basically, IAESTE offers a unique situation to you. You get to have a break from school, get cool work experience, make your resume more exotic, make friends from all over the world, travel when you're not working and learn a little more about yourself in the process. And that's only when you're abroad! At home in the local committee, you get to hang out with cool people, travel, network with professors and corporations and get to know the amazing trainees who come here! It's actually really hard to work abroad when you're not a student, and this is how you get your foot in the door. It's astounding to me that more people haven't heard of IAESTE, but now that you have, it's up to you to join and make it work for you.

I interned in Copenhagen, Denmark, for 12 weeks in the summer of 2004, working for the Danish Hydrological Institute writing software for the water resources group. I was in computer science at the time, and spent the summer programming in C# to create a user interface for the use of an optimization function for water use in a reservoir. After that summer, I switched my major to environmental engineering because I liked it so much. :) Outside of work I was living with 9 other international students in the international student housing at the Danish Technical University. The housing complex was all international students, so I probably met 100 kids from all over the world, which made life interesting all the time. The local committee in DK arranged all sorts of outings for us (though they are renowned for being spectacular about that, probably more so than most other local committees), and the trips I joined them for included a bike tour through an island in the Baltic, midsummer in a small coastal town in Sweden, a couple of days in Berlin and weekly meetings for all the folks involved in IAESTE. But the coolest part of living with other international kids was going to visit them. So we went on several trips that we arranged ourselves (to the Netherlands, Liechtenstein, and other places in DK). So while you get great work experience with IAESTE, you can also get really great international experience as well, and meet some really incredible people. It takes a lot of self-initiative, but it's totally possible, and there's no equal to that kind of experience. It changed my life, for sure.

I strongly encourage you to pursue IAESTE, I've spent the last two years trying to convince NCSU students to go abroad for a summer, and I'm shocked and amazed at the resistance I've met when my experience was so incredible. People are so satisfied with being moderately bored in Raleigh for the summer when they could instead get the experience of a lifetime at a pretty much net zero cost (since you get paid, but spend most of your earnings traveling). When else will you get this opportunity?

Go for it, seriously.

IAESTE has been a great experience for me, both at NCSU and abroad. While I was involved with IAESTE at NCSU I met a great group of fun people that I felt connected with, both at NCSU and throughout the country. I had the chance to interact and form relationships with faculty members, and had a great time meeting and hosting international interns in the summer. Through IAESTE, I earned an internship in the Czech Republic where I worked in a Genetics laboratory studying chromosome aberrations. Living and working in Europe not only gave me the chance to gain experience, but also to travel and make a lot of international friends along the way. If you are looking for an organization at NCSU to get involved with, I highly recommend IAESTE. It really has a lot to offer and it's a lot of fun, too!