Doing an internship during your studies is very important, and we help you to do it!
Has the integration of international students into the university caught your attention? Which international students do you see round your department the most?
Very much so, particularly these past few years and particularly the addition of the French and Italian students who come to use our service.
What aspect do you think will interest the international students the most about the services you offer?
What interests the students the most are the internships, they don´t really look for employment opportunities here, as they are only here for a short amount of time, they normally spend a couple of terms here and then they go back to their universities and in the employment market if they haven´t received a Master´s Degree or a Degree qualification from the CEU-UCH, they´re not employable, but we can offer them internships for Degrees like Physiotherapy and Veterinary. We give the same treatment to our Spanish students as we do to the Spanish students, from the very moment they set foot in our university. In a lot of cases, the companies actually show preference toward the international students, because they can speak another language and this makes them more attractive candidates. So, I tend to give the international companies that we work with, the CV´s of the international students who come to look for work placements.
Can you remember any interesting incidents you´ve had with the international students that you´d like to share with us?
Yes! We have an interesting story an Italian student who we helped to find a placement and at the end of his placement he gave a rose to each of us, as a way of thanking us for all our help. Italians are famous for being very charming and this is probably the incident that has stayed with me the most and that I want to share, because it was a very affectionate thing to do. It was really, a lovely thing to have done.
What do you think international students can contribute to your service and what can they gain from it?
I think the international students can benefit from the opportunity we give them to carry out a placement with an international company because they can learn and exchange cultural values and to see the world from different perspectives, which is always beneficial. We also benefit from them because it sets us apart from other institutions and makes us more attractive to international businesses.
Of all the different nationalities you see around the university, which is the one that you find the most interesting?
It has to be the Taiwanese students; they are very different to us. When I see them in the canteen I am always curious about the food that they eat. I think we are also different in the sense that they are very calm and Spanish people have a very Latin character, we are very spontaneous, dramatic, very intense, like the Italians and Portuguese for instance, people know who we are wherever we go because we are rather loud and use a lot of hand gestures, as you´ve probably noticed. On the other hand, they seem very decent, rather quiet, they can be in a large group but you hardly hear them. It´s very superficial of me to say that I´m curious about the food they eat in the canteen, but I haven´t had the chance to speak with them yet and there´s nothing else I can really say!
What advice would you give the international students?
My advice to them would be that they should make the most of all the services that are available to them at the university; they even have the advantage of having more personal assistance, since we provide individual help for the students. So I really urge them to make the most of these services, because there are many different services and I believe they really don´t use them enough. At our service, we definitely receive international students but I don´t think we receive as many as we should.
I urge them to make the most of the work placements we offer, because there are lots of different options, not only paid placement but also voluntary placements, there are many of these too; because international students are a great advantage for both the university and the company, because companies are always delighted to receive people of different nationalities, as it is certain they will benefit from this. So I really urge them to make the most of all the services!
