23 blog entries later, what is there left for me to talk about? Writing a blog about the gym was the first symptom of me running out of ideas. The last article about my work was also grasping at straws. But this is the last article, no need to be creative. Everybody knows what to expect of a last article. A clean, honest review of the internship. I’ll try to make it not too boring.
Work – the most important aspect of this trip. I am overall very happy with my work here at DATACTICS. I had the opportunity to be a network engineer. The physical testing of sockets, connecting the devices, patching the cables; It was a whole new experience for me. It was fun, but also frightening at first, I often thought I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to make any mistakes. And of course I did do mistakes. If I get a similar task in the future I’ll still do mistakes (hopefully not as many). This is something I have yet to fully understand. I know now that I need to be more confident and open for new tasks, the next step is to adapt to this realization.
Anyway, being a super awesome testing-connecting-patching machine (time to build up that confidence) was just the first part of my work placement. The other half was way less intensive. I spent a lot of time researching and testing Amazon Web Service (AWS), sadly I couldn’t bring the project about migrating a server to the cloud to a satisfying end. What I am really proud of, is the NAT-Gateway I deployed. It was working as I intended and I feel like it can easily be used and adapted.
When I applied for the internship, I explicitly said I wanted to work in the field of networking. This wish was absolutely fulfilled with this internship. I am going to miss working at DATACTICS.
Life in Belfast – I enjoyed the time in Belfast, it’s a rather small city but the landscape is wonderful. I liked the location of my accommodation too. Living near a shopping street made it easy for me to drag water home (by the way, I am really looking forward to the piped German water). Living here became mundane very fast. I felt comfortable at home, even though I still missed my prior roommate Pegah. The upside is, living alone made me realize, that I am able to stand on my own feet. I can be independent. This might be the most important growth I made here in Belfast.
Weather – Yes, this deserves a sole paragraph. My third umbrella broke as well. I am now using a hood. To whoever is planning to visit Belfast or Northern Ireland in general: Please bring a high-quality umbrella with you, a solid raincoat or be doomed to live in constant moisture. To be fair, we had some sunny days in Belfast. But this last week was cloudy and cold. 12 degrees is not something I am prepared for at the end of June. I caught a cold too. My only hope is the summer in Berlin. Since Belfast wouldn’t listen, how about we negotiate Berlin…?
Language – This is also an important element of the internship, I decided to put it at the end of this article because I am ashamed: We had to complete an English language assessment before the internship and I had to do a second one a few days ago. My English skills actually got worse, at least my grammar did. I am not sure how to place that information. One of my goals with this internship was to improve my verbal English skills and that’s something I didn’t quite accomplish. I never had the sensation of speaking fluently English. My vocabulary was slightly expanded and writing the blog entries got easier over time. It’s just not the accomplishment I was aiming for. Let’s say that I am partially satisfied with the results.
Weekend Trips – I loved our weekend trips. I was always looking forward to them. And I believe we covered a lot of what Belfast had to offer. The only thing I missed out on was the pub tour. If I had more time here (maybe at a later time in life) I would love to see the rest of Northern Ireland. I wanted to see Derry, it was suggested by a couple of colleagues. Sadly, it didn’t fit in any schedule. This might be a reason to return to Belfast in the future. Right now I am just happy to see some familiar attractions back in Berlin. It feels good to come home.
I decided to add an acknowledgment section. I have the right to do that, I am an accomplished author (of blog entries) now.
A huge thank you to my colleagues at DATACTICS! You are the friendliest bureau folk I met to date. I enjoyed going to work because of all of you. Special thanks go to Sean, who was my super nice supervisor. Sean, if you are reading this at some point, I just wanted to let you know… you have one of the best handwritings I’ve ever seen! Enviable! Thank you to my roommate, who abandoned me early in the game! I’m kidding Pegah. I still enjoyed you being here in Belfast with me. I was always delighted to casually meet you in the gym. A special thanks to you and Philipp for letting me use your credit cards. Having money almost definitely helped me survive this internship. But my biggest thank you goes out to my whole group who joined me here in Belfast – Dominik B, Dominik M, Jamie, Konrad, Max, Pegah, Philipp and René. Without all of you this internship would not have been half as fun as it was. I hope we are going to meet up in Berlin soon.
And now a special limerick
My time in Belfast has come to an end,
it was a lot to apprehend,
staying in a new city for so long,
it feels like it made me strong,
maybe just the gym-time I spent.
Don’t be too overwhelmed, I was always good at nursey rhymes.
Thank you for reading the blog, I am going to miss writing it.
Kind Regards,
Marie
