Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Interning and Traveling Abroad. Why Not Do Both at the Same Time?

Hi, my name is Daniel and I am a rising junior from Poland. This summer, I will be working as a Business Development Intern at Red Alert Labs, an Internet of Things startup based in Paris, France. Founded in February 2017, it is still a relatively young company with a team made up of only ten people. Nevertheless, they have already managed to establish a strong customer base and receive multiple awards in their area of expertise. This makes me thrilled to be joining the team and having the opportunity to help them develop the business side of their venture.

I think that the most important question to answer in this blog would be ‘Why France?’ Surprisingly, I did not suddenly wake up in the middle of a night with the idea to apply for an internship in Paris. In fact, it was a result of multiple years of studying the French language and culture before coming to Babson, as well as taking the Summer Paris Startup Strategy Elective last year. It was during that course when, after visiting Station F, the world’s biggest startup accelerator, I decided to apply for a job at one of the local startups – and this is how I ended up working at Red Alert Labs!

I also want to add a couple of words for those who, like me, have ever considered interning abroad. I noticed that some of the people whom I talked to were convinced it is exceptionally hard to secure an internship abroad and even harder to organize your stay. Personally, I have found it to be quite the opposite; all employers around the world are looking for students from U.S. colleges, and especially from the top-level schools such as Babson. In particular, I noticed that doing an internship throughout the summer is very unpopular among European students, which makes the local firms (and especially startups) very open to all applications. Trust me, it is worth a try!