Roxana Negoita was in an international intership in Turkey, in Ankara. She wrote 38 things that she misses about Ankara.

My name is Berche Roxana and I was an exchange participant for 2 months, in 2010, in Izmir, Turkey. During my Development Internship I was part of a local project called Myself My world. My main responsibilities were: organizing learning circles for high school students grades 10-11, encouraging students to speak in English, giving lectures on subjects such as Effective Communication, Time Management, Presentation skills, Leadership and preparing social activities such as art, drama, music, sports related to the previous lectures to make students interested.

You may ask what did exchange mean to me? more…

Why Romania? And why with AIESEC? These were the most asked questions when I told people about my plans to go abroad again. The second question was easy to answer because I worked for 2,5 years in AIESEC. The first one: Well it was coincidence. I just planned to go to an Eastern European country and the only reason why it was Romania was the date of the internship. It was a really nice coincidence.

Arriving in Cluj some people were already waiting for me to pick me up from the airport.

  From the beginning on people took really care of me and were very friendly, so I felt warmly welcome from the beginning of my time in Cluj. Cluj has a lot of international trainees. In the first days I met people from New Zealand, Greece, Ukraine, Poland, Azerbaijan, Puerto Rico, Hongkong, UK, Georgia, Turkey and Moldova. We also had a big global village in Julius Mall to present AIESEC and to get to know each other.

In my internship more…

Romania and New Zealand may be very far apart geographically, but being on exchange here has made me realise that it is not the world is not so small – and despite differences in culture, it is the actions of people that are important. I arrived in Romania not knowing anyone, but immediately felt at home thanks to my friends at AIESEC Cluj Napoca.

 My birthday was one day after I arrived in Cluj Napoca – but still, the LC threw me a surprise party, something I will never forget. The LC arranged group trips to sightsee around Cluj and there was never a moment where I felt lonely or without someone to talk to.

For 6 weeks, I worked on a development internship with disadvantaged children in Cluj, gaining work experience with a Romanian NGO. It is expected that there will be some challenges when working in a different country, more…

To me, travel means adventure; so I ignored the raised eyebrows and headed straight or the unknown- into the lush green lap of Transylvania, Romania. I don’t think I could have asked for a better AIESEC experience.

Romania is a land struggling to get back on its feet, both financially and politically. Yet there is always place for beauty- you’ll see her revealing her pretty face through colorful cottages, dancing crimson tulips on window sills or the adorable cobble-stoned piatas. Having spent most of my time there in Cluj Napoca, more…

For three months (15.09.2009 – 15.12.2009 )  I worked on the “Meeting Diversity” project in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, organizing a series of workshops and trainings for students from three different high schools. The workshops were concentrated on topics like public speaking skills, time management, study and speed reading or conflict resolution techniques. We also had some debates starting from movies approaching issues like cultural diversity or human rights; and two events, one through which the students had the chance to hear and discuss the experiences of young people that studied abroad through the Erasmus Program; the other one was a Simulation of the Council of the European Union where the 27 participants were given the task to discuss and negotiate on the progress Turkey has made so far in order to become a full-right member of the EU. All these activities were meant to offer the students the possibility to practice their English, learn something new and interesting and encourage them to explore all opportunities for education and international competitions. more…