Who are you?
I’m Camille, currently finalizing the master CIS. During my bachelor I was active at Flow, first as a committee member of the FAC and then as the commissioner of the FAC and the Career Evening Commission.
Where did you do an internship? And how long?
I did a full-time internship for half a year at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (FA) at the Dutch embassy in Paris. I lived in France for six months to do this internship in central Paris. An embassy is “a piece of the Netherlands abroad”, so you work for the Dutch government, just not in the Netherlands.
You can do an internship at FA for six months. At first, I had a contract for 4,5 months which was then extended to six months. It is a full time internship which means you have a 40 hour workweek. There were often events at which I helped, these were not included in my working hours, but it was fun to join events I otherwise wouldn’t attend.
How did you end up here?
During my bachelor someone told me about this internship, but in Paris they were looking for master students for this internship. I then kept an eye on the embassy website and on www.internationalefuncties.nl (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs posts all vacancies here). I was a communication trainee, so they asked for a relevant background and since all social media and the website were in French, I had to be very good at French. For internships at FA you often have to speak the language of the country properly. So, your English has to be good if you go to the US and your Spanish has to be good if you go to Colombia.
I wanted to do something practical and wanted to go abroad. So, with this internship I hit two birds with one stone. In addition, I was also curious about what it’s like to work for a government agency.
What did you do and learn at your internship?
My main job and something I was doing every day, was social media. Creating and posting messages, monitoring news and social media and so forth. During my internship there were several big events, including the COP21 and the state visit of King Willem Alexander and Queen Máxima, during which I was concerned with the social media (making of a media plan, its execution and the analysis). Besides that, I helped with organizing other events, looked for subsidies and created infographics.
Did you get study delay?
I had a study delay, because it was a full-time internship. I could not continue my study while I was in France. But that’s something I didn’t mind. I received a stipend and pension expenses.
