I am now working for the Gwangju International Center (GIC) as an intern. I enjoyed my time as an exchange student last semester with my fellow exchange students at Chonnam National University. After completing my semester at CNU, I applied for the GIC internship program in parallel with the regulation of my home university in Malaysia (University Malaysia Sarawak) to undergo an industrial training before graduating. It means every final year student is obliged to submit to internship so that the student will have work experience before they graduate. I particularly chose GIC because the center’s scope of work fits my major; International Relations.
     Working in GIC as an intern is my very first time working for an organization or working ever. Generally, I do administrative jobs such as typing a document (in English mostly) and organizing data. I often do proofreading for documents prepared by other staffs. I also edit articles and do Korea-English translation for the English language magazine, Gwangju News. I did a lot of translating and proofreading when I was a member of the team in charge of publishing the magazine. I have faced some problems while working in GIC. Despite having basic Korean language fluency, just like other student interns, I have communication problems with the locals, as we could not converse easily in one language. Other than the language barrier, the weather is a big problem. As I am coming from a tropical country, the winter is super cold for me. Other than that, I just had to adjust to locals looking down on me strangely, but I am very used to it now.
     Korea, especially GIC, is my second home and second family. It really is here. I am almost in tears as I am sad to know that I will be leaving Korea soon. GIC internship has so far been a very good experience, and I know that it will stay as a very important chapter in my life. Not only have I learned about people, I discovered myself, too. I discovered my traits and values that I never knew. What is the best is that I am improving myself in every aspect through daily life here. I thought I have made Gwangju and GIC my second home, but I realized that it was them that had always opened their arms to me, I just had to embrace them!
 

By Farah Amin, Intern, Gwangju International Center