Last week, I attended Penn's International Internship Program (IIP) session for more information about interning abroad for a summer. As a requirement of my program, each student should complete one internship during first-year summer or second-year fall semester, fulfilling a total of 166 hours of work. Since the program does not require the students to do the internship within the United States, which means they can choose to do wherever they want, as long as the position, the type of internship is related to intercultural communications or has elements that can be applied to that field. As I talked to some of the second-year students, the internships they did in summer 2013 were situated across geographic maps: China, United States (Seattle, Philadelphia), Philippine, Uganda, etc. So there is literally no limits for us to choose which place we want to do complete the internship. As for me, I always want to explore something new, and I LOVE travelling. When I knew that Penn does provide its students the opportunity to intern abroad, I was so excited. I did some research on IIP, looking up its website and reading some of the past participants' experiences of committing themselves in an internship placed in a completely different environment. I thought they were amazing.
IIP has programs covered wide range of areas, including business, education, design, engineer, finance, medicine and etc. It partners with for-profit, non-profit and non governmental organizations. The best deal, which I think most of the students will be drawn to, is that each intern will receive an award to offset their internship-related expenses, covering their housing and air fare, funded by the University of Pennsylvania. Therefore, unlike other organizations that need applicants to afford their own expenses, IIP provides such benefits to students as long as they are chosen by the school as well as the company that they applied for the internship. As it says on the flyer that "these global opportunities allow students to apply the academic knowledge they have obtained, while enriching their overall Penn experience with diverse cultural and international exposure and valuable work experience". After the session, it deepened my understanding of what I can possibly gain from this program, and it made me more determined about applying for it during next summer. Considering that the program is for both undergraduate and graduate, the competition might be very high. In order to apply, one has to submit online application, along with resume, cover letter, two recommendation letters (with one from a professor that graded the applicant) and transcripts. So it might not be that easy to get successfully selected just like some other organizations (probably because you throw money in). But anyway, it is a great chance to have an exploration while enriching personal experiences as well as academic knowledge.
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