Internship report: Lisa Robillard

My name is Lisa Robillard, I am 22 and I have just completed my degree in European Studies at Blaise Pascal University in Clermont-Ferrand. In order to complete my degree, I needed to do my last year abroad, one semester in university and the second semester doing an internship. As my degree is related to the European Union, I wanted to find a placement in an organisation dealing with this subject.

I started my internship at the European Documentation Centre in February 2016. On my first day, I was introduced to the EDC itself and to the European Sources Online (ESO) database. I was given several jobs: editing information guides on given countries, indexing articles from EU-related think tanks and indexing press releases and speeches from the European institutions. I was also sitting for three hours a day at the Enquiry Desk and I had to answer enquiries from students coming to the library.

During my time at the EDC, I also took part in two events. The first one was called ‘What Europe means to me: Europe in our daily lives’. For this event, all the interns were asked to explain what Europe means to them and how it affected their daily life. The second event in which I took part was the Europe Day Quiz, held on 9 May, which is also Europe Day.

I was quickly and warmly integrated into the team. Ian, Frederico and Ceri were really helpful to me. Working at the EDC was also a great opportunity to meet interns from all of Europe. What I enjoyed the most were the morning talks about the news – the EU Referendum for the most part – and the debates we had about these issues.

Concerning Cardiff, I really liked living in this city. As I arrived there in September, I really had the time to explore the city and do some trips elsewhere in Wales or in England. There are a lot of places in Cardiff I will miss! People there are also really friendly and helpful with foreigners, which is quite pleasant. During my time in Cardiff, I was living in a house with other people. It was a good way of meeting new people and new cultures and we made a lot of international friends who were studying at Cardiff University.

In short, I truly enjoyed my time in Cardiff and at the EDC and I highly recommend it to students looking to improve their knowledge of the European Union and their language skills. This placement has been a real added value to my studies and it was also a good introduction to the world of work. I thank Ian, Frederico and Ceri for the good times I had back there and I also thank all the interns, full-time and part-time, I have been working with for all the good chats and laughs!