Students get a lot of opportunities to go abroad and add some cultural experience to their curriculum. The most popular programme is probably the Erasmus Programme. It has been in existence since the late 1980s and it provides foreign exchange opportunities for students from within the European Union.
A lot of students study abroad with the programme, I decided to go for an internship in the UK to discover London. It’s only a two-hour train ride from Brussels, Belgium, but that doesn’t make it less scary. People drive on the other side of the road (dangerous) and they drink a lot of tea (with cake, delicious). But they are very friendly (they train every day for a nonexistent national queuing championship) and I already feel quite at home.
Before I came here I had no idea what B2B marketing was. I studied journalism in Belgium and marketing isn’t really a subject over there. That’s why at first I felt really overwhelmed; the B2B world isn’t very welcoming to new people. From an outsiders’ perspective the industry looks like it is constructed on abbreviations and jargon. For the first few days I had a hard time understanding everything. I lived with Wikipedia close by and had definitions on standby, hoping one day I would be able to remember some of those new words.
I was lucky. The first week passed by and I survived. I have some great colleagues who don’t mind answering my questions for the second, fifth or hundredth time (I think). With small steps I got to understand more of the subject and I was even able to write some articles myself.
There is still a lot to learn but the world of B2B has become one I want to get to know. One month has already flown by, three more to go. I look forward to all the things I will learn.