A year in Industry
Created | Updated Jul 23, 2004
A lot of students want to broaden their horizon nowadays and go to a foreign country for studying and working. This is however not always so easy. There are a lot of things which have to be taken care of. Doing extensive research into serving a trainee ship/year in industry in Finland and finding a graduation project in Italy a lot of things popped up. This entry tries to help students all over the world and to make things easier for those enterprising students.
The most important thing is making a checklist of the most important things you have to do. This list has to be so complete so you can say to your self:'if I have to leave tomorrow I can leave tomorrow.' To make it easier here a few guidelines what to put in the checklist and some helpfull hints how to take care of them:
Find a project.
This is difficult enough, it will take up most of your time. Write a correct application in which you explain what you are searching. If your professors have contacts in various companies or countries they might be able to help you with this. Send or e-mail it to as many companies and universities as you like.
Take care that writing to different countries you have to be carefull how you address persons in your letters. Different countries have different habbits so think before you write what kind of writing habbits the country has.
Also make sure that they can not see that you send it to others as well. Companies generaly think,'Ooh he sent it to a lot of companies so we don't have to bother.' Making it appear that you wrote to one company makes the company or person reading the letter to feel special as if you were especially interested in their company.
Approval
Get approval from the professor at your school. Here I suggest caution, this can be very frustrating and difficult and usually takes a lot of time. The red tape makes it a slow proces. Best thing to do is getting another teacher to back you up. This teacher will add some weight to words and conversation. Some teachers still think students are a lower lifeform and hardly worth the time to take serious.
Ok
You have the approval, tell your contact that it is ok and ask him about a place to stay. This is ussually a formality as most companies and universities have rooms or appartments to their dispossal for guests and foreign visitors. If your contact makes it clear to you that the company or university doesn't have anything for you ask that he be mediator for you in acquiring a cheap appartment. It is always nice to have a place to sleep when you finally arrive there.
Funds
Try to get as much money as possible is the motto here. Use internet for this, you can find tons of funds and scholarships there. The only limitation is how many papers are you prepared to fill in. It is ussual that for every fund or scholarship you acquire you will get forms to fill in and will have to send them together with at least the abstract of the report you made during your stay.
Some good places to look for funds:
Permits
Get your contact at the university or company to enquire for you. Much easier then trying to find it out yourself. Normally you need a residence permit and a work permit. Sometimes you also need a visa, this is unusual and depends solely on the country you are planning to go to. Be sure to apply for them as soon as it is certain that you go there because work permits and visa's take up a lot of time.
Trip
Arrange the trip there. Usually by airplane. I am not making advertising here but KILLROY travels has very cheap flights for students to almost anywhere. Boats, trains and busses are also an option but this depends on the distance. If your planning to work in Japan as a british student, the best thing would be the plane as a bus tends to take a long time and has difficulty crossing the sea.
Last item
Give a goodbye party and say bye to relatives. This is very important, if you don't the contact between friends will slowly die out if you are not carefull. Kiss your girlfriend one last time, and get on the damn plane before it leaves. This last thing is very important as it shows bad form to be late for a work/study period of 6 months in a different country.
Survival of the student.
depending of the situation get contacts in the native student community as fast as possible. This because they have several advantages over other more 'normal' contacts:
- They are bound to speak a language you understand.
- You have people to go out with.
- They can guide you to the nearest bars and disco.
- They know the places to avoid unless your sick of life.
If no student lifeforms then try to get contacts with the local people but this is usually tough.
Sofar the most important things one should know. For helpfull links see the references below:
