My Ireland Erasmus experience | By Adrián Lorente
10 de junio del 2022 Students experiences
My Ireland Erasmus experience
By Adrián Lorente
My name is Adrián Lorente Gracia, I am 20 years old and I am a student of audiovisual production and shows in professional training at CIFP César Manrique, in Tenerife.
Last April 2022 I started my Erasmus+ internship in Galway, Ireland. I had been to Ireland before but I chose to go because I didn't feel like doing the internship where I live, I wanted to live the experience of being in a new place (I hadn't been to Galway before) and completely alone, so I could get to know myself better and learn to function in a situation in which I had not seen myself before.
Having previously visited the country, I already knew people. People who did me the favor of taking me from the airport to the place where I was going to stay for the next two months. My house was going to be a small flat in Roscam, where I would live with a super nice and kind lady named Shirley. Although the rent in Ireland is much more expensive than in Spain, the house was very good. I had my own room with a double bed and shared the living room kitchen and bathroom with Shirley. There was never any coexistence problem.
A few days after arriving, my work experience in Ireland began. The company that hosted me is called GK Media. An audiovisual and marketing company located in Galway that made videos of all kinds, live broadcasts and social networks among other fields.
Let's start talking about the team. The boss of the company was Garry Kelly, a charming and hard-working boss who was super nice to me all the time. He built the company 9 years ago and it is still going strong today. Apart from Garry, I worked with 3 other people who formed a super good working environment. They were all very good people and we all got along great with each other, and for me, the work environment is something very important when it comes to working. If there is a good atmosphere, you have more desire to work.
The facilities were very nice and cozy. When I arrived they had just moved into new offices so they were not fully equipped. There were things on process like a podcast studio and a green screen studio.
In terms of equipment I could not complain at all. They had more than 6 cameras to record/broadcast, iMacs, microphones, spotlights, drones, stabilizers, music libraries and all the equipment, services and programs necessary to develop my work.
Obviously, when you arrive new at a company, they are not going to give you super important jobs, they will send you simple things to see how you are, how you develop, and slowly they will send you more important jobs. It is important not to get frustrated in this initiation phase, to be patient and show that you want to work and give it your all, so that the boss sees that you really want to work hard.
I did al kind of jobs in the company, I edited videos, edited photos, did graphic design, worked on social media...
These experiences teach you a lot about life, as well as the sector in which you do the internship.
In terms of social life I didn't have much, my life was to work from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m, go to the gym and repeat. On weekends I either stayed at home or went for a bike ride or went to Mullingar for the weekend (where the family I had stayed with the other years I went to Ireland lived in). I didn't make friends or socialize much because basically I didn't want to, I didn't feel like it and I didn't get on very well with Irish people my age. In the same way, this helped me to be completely alone during this internship period. I had never been completely alone and it is an experience that I wanted to live and from which I learned a lot and in which I was thinking a lot about myself and my life.
Adrián Lorente
Instagram: www.instagram.com/adrianlorenteg
Mail: lorentegraciaadrian@gmail.com
/ Erasmus / Erasmus + / Ireland / Internship