Since mid-June of this year, I have been working at The Intern Group’s Latin American office in Santiago, Chile, as a Business Development/Marketing Intern. In my role, I work directly under David, the CEO/Managing Director of The Intern Group, and Aurora, the Head of University Relations for Europe & the Americas. Every day here is a bit different, but in this blog post I will try to give you an idea of what a typical Monday working at The Intern Group is like!
7:30 a.m. My alarm goes off, and I shower and get ready for the day!
8:00 a.m. I pack up my backpack and set off for my morning walk to the office. I live in an apartment in Providencia, the same neighborhood in which the office is located, and my commute to the office is a 25-minute walk. Now that it is summertime here in Santiago, this walk is quite lovely– with flowers blooming by the sidewalk and the cool shade of the trees all along my path!
8:30 a.m. Every week, we have a call with all of our central team– who are based all around the world! Here in Santiago, we have The Intern Group’s CEO/Managing Director (David), COO (John), Head of Marketing (Lexie), Head of Admissions (Candance), Admissions Officer (Caitlin), Marketing Intern (Abbie), Finance Intern (Jared), and me! Other team members who are part of the central team include our two Heads of University Relations, based in Madrid (Aurora) and Bangkok (Jodie), another Admissions Officer in Bangkok (Nicola), and a B2B Intern in Bangkok (Gineke). I quite enjoy the Monday morning calls, as we get a glimpse of what each individual is working on and any recent successes!
9:00 a.m. Following the central team call, I then get on a call with the B2B team– David, Aurora, Jodie, and Gineke. We primarily discuss developing partnerships with universities and tasks/strategies moving forward. The B2B call typically lasts about an hour.
10:00 a.m. Those of us who are coffee addicts then make a Starbucks run to get fuel for the rest of the day! It is both a blessing and a curse that the Starbucks is located just a block away…
10:20 a.m. Following the morning calls and with caffeine in my system, I then get to work on my tasks for the day. I go through any emails that have come in over the weekend, responding to them as necessary. I then work on tasks for David, which often include engaging in correspondence on his behalf and running errands (such as mailing packages or paying bills for the office). I sometimes also work on researching new advertising/marketing methods and processes related to business development.
12:30 p.m. This is the central team’s lunch hour. However, as of about a month ago, we now have “Flexible Hours,” meaning that we can come into work anytime 7:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m., work for eight and a half hours, and then head out! This is an amazing option to have– if I come in at 8:30 a.m. and work while eating my lunch, I get to leave at 5:00 p.m. As a result, most days I work through my lunchtime in order to get off work earlier, but we do have the option to take this hour to relax while we eat lunch, either here in the office or at a restaurant.
1:30 p.m. During the afternoon, I typically work on tasks for Aurora– contacting universities about our programs, helping her to plan for upcoming fairs and information sessions, etc. Since I am a recent university graduate, I like liaising with university contacts, sharing with them how their students can benefit from our international internship programs, and answering any questions that they have.
3:30 p.m. In the late afternoon most days, I write a post for the blog– topics range from professional development tips to sightseeing information for our five internship destinations: London, Madrid, Hong Kong, Australia, and Latin America (Colombia).
5:00 p.m. Given that I’ve worked through lunch and gotten all of my tasks accomplished for the day, I get to head out now! My evenings during the week are spent grabbing a drink with friends or co-workers, going to the gym for a workout, attempting to cook for myself, and/or catching up on shows on Netflix.
Hopefully this has given you a better idea of what it is like to work as an intern at The Intern Group’s Santiago office! We certainly work hard here, and our supervisors set high expectations for us interns, but we also have a lot of fun together! This internship has been an amazing experience for me, and I know I will really miss working here when I finish in December.
My coworkers were so sweet to celebrate my 22nd birthday with me during my first week at the office!