April 7, 2017, by International students

Internship at the International Office

A selfie at Wollaton Hall

Hyelim Gang, from South Korea, is studying BA International Media and Communications Studies as part of an exchange programme from our China Campus in Ningbo. She recently completed a work placement module, working on the International Office’s marketing and communications activities.

I am a 1-year Korean exchange student from The University of Nottingham China Campus. The beginning of last autumn semester, I had to choose my modules to study. I wanted to take a lecture with my friends together but there was an obstacle for that. The problem was poor Chinese. I only stayed in China 1 years and came to the UK. In other words, I did not have enough time to learn Mandarin. Unfortunately, the module all of my friends chose required fluent Chinese to translate Chinese to other languages such as French and German.

However, I did not expect this could be another opportunity for me. I discussed my optional modules with my personal tutor and she recommended me a module from CLAS. Even though the module conductor was worried about me as English is not my first language unlike other course mates, she allowed me to take the module and now I am doing an internship at the International Office of The University of Nottingham.

From the first week of working, it was exotic for me. I had grown up with Asian culture and got used to it. I do not need to bow down to say hi and other colleagues ask me if I need coffee even though they are older than me. These cultural differences help to learn about equality and how to respect others regardless their age.

At Wollaton Hall with a parrot

My working skill is also improving while I am working here. Unlike my previous working experience, I have to make creative content on my own with help from co-workers, David (International Marketing and Communications Assistant) and Jessica (Senior International Relations Officer for Korea). This helps me to be a creative and effective worker at the same time. To be more specific, I need to run a blog in Korean from one of the most popular web search engine, Naver, for the university. As I am the only one who can speak Korean in the office, I need to have a responsibility more than before for the blog posting. For the contents of the blog, David and Jessica give me guidelines of what to write about and while discussing about contents with them, I could learn their working skills and ideas.

Still working for the international office is a challenge for me because of a lack of my ability of working and English; I am growing up and this makes myself to be curious about my future self.

Read our Naver blog by Hyelim (in Korean).

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