Holly Brown. Student of Bristol University
My CBLingua experience in Seville.
With my 4-month internship here at CBLingua coming to an end, I wanted to reflect on my experience of starting off as an intern working online from my home in England, and how it compares to my role now, here in the Seville office.
Unfortunately, like many others this year, I was unable to start my internship in Seville back in January due to Covid complications. However, I was fortunate enough to be offered the opportunity to carry out the internship online until travel was viable. This being my first ever internship and a newbie to the world of translation, I was apprehensive as to what was expected of me, how it would run smoothly online, and most importantly would I be disadvantaged for being the only non-presential intern? Much to my surprise I had a very positive experience and felt supported the whole way through my time working from home.
The online experience
My primary point of contact was Ana, the internship coordinator, who maintained contact with me every day via Skype. She introduced me to all the various types of
documents I would encounter during my internship and replied instantly to any doubts or queries I ever had. By the end of my first week, I had already been assigned a real translation project which although was daunting, made me feel trusted and like a valued intern to the company. As the weeks went by, I was also put into contact with some of the full-time translators at the company, allowing me to familiarise myself with the team. I believe this was incredibly important, as starting a new job/internship online can be a little alienating if you have no contact with the other employees.
The office experience in CBLingua
As I’m writing this, it’s now my 5th and final week here in the Seville office and although my time here has been short, it’s most definitely been sweet. Having had the opportunity to integrate myself into the office, I’ve now witnessed first-hand the operational aspect of the office and how it is run effectively. Since being here in person, my role has been much more varied and has allowed me to develop all sorts of new skills that I couldn’t do from home. Principally, answering the office phone and talking to and advising clients directly has been a huge learning curve as well as excellent for improving not only my Spanish but also my confidence. Other tasks I get involved in include: preparing finished projects for clients to collect, helping with the English translation of social media captions and even going to the post office to send off projects which has taught me a lot of specific Spanish vocabulary!
Overall, during the time I was working from home, I still felt my experience was valuable and that my Spanish was improving solely through my translation work and writing with Ana every day. However, without a shadow of a doubt there’s nothing quite like being fully integrated in an office. Not only does it make the job more interesting by carrying out different tasks and learning new skills, but being an intern in the office we are supported and encouraged to dip outside of our comfort zone, which is after all, the best way to learn and to improve.