Internship Feedback

Uveřejněné zprávy z praxí neprošly ani jazykovou ani textovou úpravou. Proto, prosím, omluvte chybějící „hacky a carky“, stylistické a gramatické nedokonalosti textů.

BcA Petr Hostaš, Technical University of Liberec,

ročník 4

About the country

Location of the place

San Juan is located in Western Argentina close to the biggest mountains of Cordilleras. 250km north of Mendoza, 12 hours by bus from Santiago de Chile. It's also accessible by plane from Buenos Aires but this way is more expensive..

City

Typical calm Argentinian city with modern infrastructure. Large university with good support. Average quality of accommodation and food. Slightly more expensive than central Europe. Lots of possibilities to get close to cultural experience and night life.

Surroundings (possible trips, ...)

Closest attraction is Dique de Ullum - place to hang out, swim and have fun. More far (230km) is Rodeo - typical desert village with virgin nature around and possibility to try kitesurfing and windsurfing. Closer (180km) is also Ischigualasto - national park, interesting place for people involved in geology. Another interesting place is Barreal - Leoncito national park and reservation of zero light pollution, good for observe stars and night sky.

Employer

My employer was SUPRA visual comunicación. Young studio working mostly in graphic design and illustration. Very open to new approaches to work. Understandable, friendly and great collective of six graduates of local university.

Work description

As expected, under good conditions I worked on promotion videos for SUPRA studio, filling social media and making some extra logo designs

Salary (sufficient for local conditions?)

Salaray was highly insufficient. Salary for two month 1500ARS (142€). One week expenses (one trip, extra food, night life) 80€.

Language requirements

Spanish - 90%, English 10%. There were actually one person out of six speaking english in the studio. And Argentinians in general don't speak much english, so just learn some Spanish, you will safe yourself out of lot of troubles.

Accommodation (price, who provided it)

Accommodation was for free, provided by University of San Juan. Quality is average, not a lot of space, but friendly stuff and everything you need on one place.

Social life

Meeting IAESTE members (pick-up at the airport, organized events...)

Organization lacks pressicion in San Juan. No pick-up or meetings from the beginning I had to rely on myself mostly. One organized trip in whole 8 weeks seems little bit poor. Organizers counts with independent behavior, so get use to it. During the practice wasn't problem to meet and hang out with other IAESTE, but we had to organize these events by ourselfes.

Meeting other foreign students

It was great from this point of view, I gained a lot of new contacts, friends and experiences with other cultures from around the world.

Sport and culture

Accommodation was in the sport centre and great amount of runners appeared in the city. Cultural basics focused around Museum of Modern Art, Faculty of Art at UNSJ and also mainstream culture mostly at night life activities.

Food, local specialties

Awesome stuff in Argentina. What I recommend to try: sweet - Dulce de Leche, Alfajores, Helado de dulce de leche, facturas; salty - pancho con poncho, empanadas, pizza con muzzarella, asado, lomo; drinks - fernet, dada 5

Other information

Possibilites to communicate with the Czech Republic

You have to get used to really slow and unreliable internet, but when it works, you can communicate very easily via social media, Skype, or just use your cellphone.

Recommendations for students who will go to the same place

Don't be afraid of anything, learn fraze "Por que no?" and use it, enjoy, learn more spanish.

What not to forget with you

You will need quite a big amount of humor, which is closely related to sence of tolerance you will need. Bring some money, tha sallary is not sufficient for some extra travelling and it would be sad to just sit two month in one city. Take your passport, good thing to have.

Benefits of the internship

I gained a lot of international experiences. I had the opportunity to get insight into the Argentinian business, new inspiration for my work and also learn some Spanish