It has been 2 weeks since I came back to Pittsburgh after spending the most eye-opening and fantastic summer in Portugal. After taking time to adjust back to my routine schedule at home, spending time with family, and catching up with friends, I still can’t believe that I had such a great opportunity with the FHC to complete this program and take advantage of staying in one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen.
On the academic side, I completed an internship at the Portuguese Council for Refugees (CPR) and got to learn a lot about the refugee integration process in the European Union. I was excited to see what I had learned in my classes the previous semester about the politics of migration in Europe, the EU structure, and transatlantic relations be translated to the workplace I went to everyday. Although adjusting to a novel work culture that handled heavy and sensitive cases for asylum seekers was not easy at times, I believe this field of work is so empowering, and NGOs are needed now more than ever to ensure human rights are protected. Even before college, I had dreamed of going to law school and becoming an immigration attorney. I felt that this internship was always preparing me and teaching me new things that reassured my passion for working in immigration law. I also feel that working in a cross-cultural environment challenged me in ways that highly benefit a career built on cultural competence and global cooperation.
I also had to learn how to balance a full-time internship while simultaneously making the most out of my summer, which meant exploring the city, traveling, touring historic sites, trying new restaurants, making friends, and ensuring I had time to wind down and rest. This was hard, and I was exhausted many days, but I have no regrets because I made memories that will last me a lifetime. For example, interns had to really take advantage of packing the weekends for trips to other cities or countries. I went to Setubal, Porto, Coimbra, Lagos, and Seville during my program. A highlight of this strategic planning to maximize time on weekends was when a group of us interns took an overnight bus to Seville, Spain after a workday. We left Lisbon at 11 pm and arrived at 6 am in Seville to walk around for hours until our Airbnb was available. After a long weekend of sightseeing, staying out late, shopping, getting 20k steps everyday, we repeated the process and left Spain at 11 pm on Sunday, arrived back in Portugal at 6 am on Monday, and went to our internships by 9 am.
Overall, I feel a new sense of independence and confidence after completing this program. I would highly recommend the Portugal Internship program for anyone because it combines all the basic goals of how a college student wants to spend their summer: traveling, studying abroad, getting an internship, and having fun before going back to campus. I can truly say that I do not have any regrets about this program, and I have left with new friends from Pitt and close connections with my internship supervisors that I would love to visit again someday.
