I participated in an Erasmus+ Mobility Programme for Higher Education Level, during which I underwent a traineeship for two months from 24th July 2017 till 29th September 2017. The Mobility took place at Expert Tooling & Automation Ltd, located in Coventry, United Kingdom.

The Erasmus+ mobility experience was my first time travelling abroad alone as well as the longest time I had been away from home. Even though I had preferred if I had shared this experience with other students, I was the only intern assigned to a company in Coventry. However, I decided to look at this opportunity as a new challenge and see what it had to offer.

Expert, the company where I was doing my internship, is a successful SME business in the UK. I had the opportunity to work in a professional working environment and gain basic knowledge about how the automation and tooling manufacturing industry operates. My mentor was very understanding and always listened whenever I had a question; if I ever was unsure about something assigned to me or simply personal interest about how certain situations are handled in the company. My assigned role was that of marketing intern and I did provide my input with marketing related tasks such as planning exhibition stands, setting up Expert’s Twitter account, designing a mini site to serve as promotion as well as recommend improvements that could be made to Expert’s website. These were all new tasks for me which I enjoyed doing.

In the meantime, I had the opportunity to help my mentor with her Human Resources tasks, which I found interesting. This helped me achieve some experience in HRM as well. I even covered reception for a week and got to meet more Expert employees as well as greet and handle customers coming from big companies such as Jaguar/Land Rover.

This Erasmus+ mobility experience has helped me improve my social skills, become more responsible, be more confident in taking risks and given me an insight of what it’s like to both work and live in another country. I also took the opportunity of being abroad to travel to nearby places, see different cultures and meet different people. All in all, it was a very positive experience and if I had another similar opportunity in the future, I would not miss it.