Frontier Style: Internships Abroad

This week Frontier is focusing on the various different internship opportunities available to you abroad.

I often find that one of the best things about going away is the pre-departure preparations, as it justifies a mass-shop and buying things that you wouldn’t normally buy, but have always secretly wanted. It also justifies having your parents take you for a mass-lunch because you ‘need’ to fill up while you can because you’ll ‘only’ be eating beans and rice abroad. When shopping before going on a journalism, medical or veterinary placement you might find yourself seeking out mundane items such as notebooks, tissues etc., but I’d like to offer you some ideas which put the fun back into practical shopping and which you can just about justify ‘needing’ for an internship abroad.

 When embarking on a Frontier journalism internship you’ll be undertaking a mixture of tasks including reporting, shadowing journalists, writing transcripts and covering community events. No mean feat, but even less so when you consider the language and culture barriers in such places as Fiji, Argentina, Nepal, China, Ecuador, India , Kenya and Tanzania. Instead of missing that all important quote which could just bag you the front page, you could invest in a Smartpen to do the job for you. Although the MemoQ MQ-77 is a bit of an investment at around £100, it would be perfect to use in an interview abroad. It has a 12hour recording battery, a discreet, slim design which looks just like a normal pen with no buttons or lights, a headphone/speaker jack to listen back to the interview without a computer, and an easy one-touch operation slide clip to start/stop recording. Using a smart pen means you can fully engage with the interviewee, record everything they say, and still write down key facts, figures or catchy headlines.

A common trend that has been emerging among doctors is the crocs fad. Although crocs aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, they are light and comfy and could also brighten up an otherwise boring pair of scrubs with matching scrub cap. On a medical placement with Frontier you’ll be performing basic healthcare activities and assisting/shadowing doctors. If you’re going to be on your feet all day, the case for suffering to be beautiful should be disregarded. Beauty should, instead, be cast out of the window in order to prevent your feet suffering. You can do just this with a pair of Classic crocs, starting at around £27.99, which are also perfect for the beach after a long day at the hospital too.

Working with animals, albeit cute, is messy. If you’re interested in animals and are thinking of going out to do a Veterinary Internship in Ecuador, work in the Amazon wildlife Sanctuary or in the Amazon Wildlife Rescue Centre, one slightly niche, but definitely useful item to take would be a Wellie Boot bag. Wholesale Wellies offers a number of cheap and cheerful bags which would be perfect to stuff your wellies into after a mucky days work with the animals and would help you carry them and pack them up into your backpack without dirtying your other clothes.

For animal-lovers or even just comfort-addicts get yourself a Kigu Animal Onesie, at £39.99, which is perfect for a veterinary internship (if not any project) to cuddle up in at night, to dress up in for a party or, if you’re a bit strange like me, wear as camouflage around your project site to weird people out. The Panda Kigu, for example, would be perfect attire at the China Panda Breeding Centre.
 
By Greta Hedley-Miller