Great Experience!

My two months as an intern in Sydney can be summarized as a great experience. The company I was placed with had great people that were interested in giving me as much work and provided me with as many learning opportunities as possible. In this, I thank Global Experience for placing me with this company. Of course, what follows are downsides that I felt throughout my overall wonderful experience. Each point is presented in order of relevance/importance:

1. Although I understand that our initial living accommodation was supposed to be a great or better place, 2013 Summer interns (myself included) were placed in Jack's place due to renovations being made in the initial lodgings. The living experience there was all in all, close to horrible. In the first week, the electric outlets didn't work and the internet had problems. For the entire two months of stay, one of the window of one of the Girl's shower rooms had a window lodged/stuck open. This was an issue because not one girl showered in this room because the window's direction is faced parallel to the window of one of the resident's room. In other words, using 2/3 shower rooms meant a morning rush where a floor predominantly filled with girls fought to use the two shower rooms (Of course, I and a few others showered at night). I also vividly recall of how messy 'we' as 'a group' were via neglected dishwashing, accumulating garbage, friday night indoor parties that left the public space in utter chaos. Not all of us (myself included) were involved in circulating mess but it doesn't help the fact that the majority was like this and therefore resulted in an unhealthy relationship with our landlord/supervisor and location coordinator. I feel conflicted between the shabby conditions of Jack's Place (as compared to how much we pay) and unhygienic or careless habits of many of my co-residents. I can't really point fingers but this greatly impacted my indoor lifestyle. Maybe I (we-Summer 2013 interns) were just unlucky with our residential placement but I sincerely hope that future interns did not get placed into Jack's Place or an alternative, similar accommodation. An important note: Jack's Place is situated in King's Cross--a party and 'red light district' hub--not such an appealing location. I know I had a location coordinator who had my back (which I thank for), but with the local station smacked in the center of the red light district area, everything seemed creepy and unsafe as soon as daylight descends. Even my company felt sorry that I had to live in Kings Cross for two months (note: I have zero affinity for the party scene).

2. Due to no.1, I couldn't help but feel that we were paying way too much for this experience. Furthermore, Sydney is indubitably an expensive city and this emphasizes the total money that was spent in one's Global Experience journey. There was a fellow GE intern who had his university or company sponsor the internship (so all accommodations were covered) and just having a fellow intern having a free ticket (which is amazing for him!) made me feel like I could have opted for an alternate, less pricey, internship path in Sydney. This makes me truly feel like it is wise choice to first choose a country, research companies (you wish to intern in), review visa application process, find a suitable lodging , plan places where you, yourself want to go to and then weigh the total cost of it--I feel like doing all this labor is much more cost-efficient (and worth every penny for me) than paying so much to get an experience you might not be too happy with in the end. This point pretty much summarizes why I do not recommend GE to others. This sentiment is better phrased as critically research and weigh your options first and then jump in the awesome experience that is Global Experience :)

3. This is minor but being new to Global Experience back then, I became paranoid when I did not receive updates on how things were going for my Sydney internship. Furthermore, my GE advisor changed twice which made me feel uneasy. All of this dissolved when I landed in Australia :)

I may seem overly critical and negative but I want to stress that I really did enjoy the company GE introduced me to--it was a wonderful memory filled with lessons and I thank them very much for it.