Summary of my traineeship

WARNING: If you haven't followed my story from the start, you won't see the cream of the jest. I advise you to read from the beginning, i.e. the bottom of the page.

My internship report

By Narantsogt Baatarkhuu

I went to Romania in June 9^th, 2008 through AIESEC CEE the summer program. The traineeship, being in the educational field, was in “AIESEC Pitesti” student organization and my main responsibility was to contribute to the “AIESEC Summer School” training agenda, and co-train/facilitate the delivery of the training. My traineeship lasted for about two months.

Although I was accepted by the TN to be employed from the 1^st June to 15^th August, I had a problem (missed the bus to Romania) with arriving on the specified date. The AIESEC PITESTI welcomed me with great enthusiasm and amiability, and I was immensely drawn into an intimate and encouraging atmosphere. My impression about AIESEC Pitesti was that almost everyone speaks English at least above intermediate, and they have been eager to accept a new trainee after two years of absence. I was accommodated in one of the AIESEC members’ apartment for the first two nights, and it shaped my impression about Romanian lifestyle positively.

I was called to, and willingly complied with, the promotion of the upcoming “Summer School” the next day. I was responsible for visiting the high schools in Pitesti city, along with few other AIESEC-ers, and touting “Summer School” training modules to high school students. The students had a great reaction overall, although my nervousness hindered the first few visits. The promotion continued for five days during which I have also been guided around the city and/or brought to watch a football match in a pub.

The Summer School had five training modules: Personal Development, Public Speaking, Project Management and Living Diversity with 77, 111 and 85 students respectively. The fifth module, Sustainable Development was added in each module as a bonus. Project Management and Sustainable development were agreed to be taught by Romanian trainers, due to its complexity.

Personal Development module was taught from 16^th to 22^nd of June. Excluding the Sustainable Development class, it had 4 parts, Personal Branding and Career Planning, of which I was in charge; Self Awareness and Career Planning which was taught by my fellow intern from USA.

Public Speaking module was taught from 23^rd June to 1^st July. It had 4 parts as well, Introduction, Design and Delivery of Speech, and Simulation. This time the trainings were held simultaneously in two classrooms.

Living Diversity module was taught from 7^th to 11^th of July. Unlike the previous trainings where me and my fellow trainer had Romanian co-trainers, we held the training together. It had 3 parts, Introduction, Cultural Difference and Cultural tolerance, and the participants participated in “Global Village” open door day at the end of the module.

On average, I had 3 classes a day (morning, afternoon and evening) with 13-17 students at a time. The modules were held in classrooms in University of Pitesti building, “Corpus D”, and the AIESEC Pitesti office was nearby. I was provided with a PC (desktop or laptop), projector, flipcharts and markers etc. My typical cycle of making training was:

· To do a research on the Internet about a certain topic, possible method to teach it, and suitable jokes

· To plan the session outline with the co-trainer and to compromise on the final draft

· To find the needed items for logistics (flipcharts, printed materials) and props for games (candies, playing cards )

· To submit the outline to the Local Committee

· To carry out a mini-simulation of the training in front of the Local Committee Members and receive feedback

· To hold the actual training

· To receive written feedback from the students

So far, I have found the feedback from my students to be the most encouraging part of the whole traineeship. Also, because mostly my co-trainers would ask me to deliver the training the way I want, I used to play big role in making session outlines. In order to make the training interesting, we combined different methods, e.g. showing movies made by ourselves, having a role play, putting icebreakers and including current pop culture examples in our trainings.

To conclude, I had planned to learn 3 main things before coming to Pitesti city. They were charisma, expert knowledge in my major and personal management. I am not sure if my experiences developed all of them. However, I learned several things unexpectedly. They are too trivial to be mentioned by simple words, so I am using table.

Experience/Knowledge/Lesson I gained	Place where I gained
Corporate Social Responsibility	AIESEC Pitesti training
Audience management	Training modules
“Selling myself” a.k.a Convincing people	Promotion; Info meeting
Brainstorming	Session outline
Urban planning	General traineeship; trip around the city
Making better presentation	Training modules
Developing sense of humor and self-confidence	Training modules
Facilitating and training skills	General traineeship
Knowledge about the abovementioned trainings	Training modules

Although this traineeship did not, the consequence of it changed my attitude towards life. It helped me grasp more realistic approach in life and look at my education from another angle.