Internship in Germany vs Internship in Canada: Pros and Cons

In the third semester of my study programme, every student is mandated to undergo an internship for at least three months in a biosphere reserve or non-governmental organizations which have projects or affiliations with biosphere reserves. This is a requirement and it has to be done in order to graduate as a master’s student.

Internship in Germany

Although, i did not really plan to do two internships in my third semester because i will only need to present one of them. I started my first internship in Spreewald Bioshere Reserve, about 100km south of Berlin. I had to commute to and from the location about three times a week and it took me approximately 3 hours to arrive at the office from my house. This transport condition was very tedious for me despite having my student ID card which served as a transit pass to and from the office. There were some periods in which rail track repairs were ongoing which extended the duration of the journey. I often times felt super exhauseted after the trip to or from home.

Considering the fact that my german proficiency level was still very low, i had difficulties communicating with the locales in my study area and sometimes in the office. This was a huge challenge because i had to solely depend on my supervisor and a few other staffs in order to acquire reliable information. My supervisor was stupendiously helpful and he ensured that i didnt have difficulties in terms of getting information. In the first week of introduction, my supervisor and I went Kayaking around the Biosphere Reserve which was an awesome experience. I felt priviledged to have such a supervisor who is open and friendly.

My internship was solely research based which meant that i had to do a lot of literature review with resources online and the office library. The unfortunate part of it was that, all the resources were in german language which made my research work a bit tedious and complicated. Regardless of this, my colleagues at work were very empathetic and they did their best to make things easier for me by getting some of the documents translated – this was a big relief.

Internship in Canada

Two months after completing my internship at Spreewald, i moved to Canada for my second internship at Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Region Institute (MABRRI). The first major problems i encountered were jet lag and transportation system. As a student, coming from Germany with a 9 hours time duffference was a bit of struggle where i sometimes slept for just 2hrs in 24hrs. As expected, this could happen to anyone. I am so accustomed to using trains and bikes in Germany that i found it difficult to adapt to a region without trains and bike paths. I was struggling for almost two weeks with these but i easily made a friend who would always take me out in her car if i needed to go somewhere that far. Yeah! there were definitely buses in the town i resided in but it took a while to adjust.

My supervisor at MABRRI was super friendly and understanding. Before i forget, Canadians are very welcoming and friendly people. Every staff at MABRRI were so willing to support my internship period to the best of their ability . I was even registered as astudent at Vancouver Island University which gave me leverage over so many things. This was definitely a great feeling and a unique experience.

As you may already know, Canada is an english speaking dominated country with some provinces speaking french. This made my internship a lot easier because i could easily approach anyone in the university, institute or even at the Biosphere Reserve without thinking about the person’s preferred language of communication. Asking questions, making contributions and also offering personal opinions about anything, including my research became a piece of cake.