Hey guys… I have a great cuestion in my mind that have been bother me for the past week, I don´t know in how many universities around the world exist a “practice semester”, usually here in Colombia a career is finished in 10 academic semesters and in my University (Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) when you get to 8th you have to do this Practice Semester, this means that you have to find a temporal job for 5 or 6 months… then the company and/or you have report to the faculty every week all the thing you have done monitoring your development. Now… I know this is common worldwide, but the question is… How I find Companies around the world that are searching to fill temporal jobs with students??? The university give us a list where we can find a lot of companies willing to receive students, here in Colombia the list have a lot of companies (like 50), but outside Colombia there are only a few (15 or 20), next semester I have to do my practice semester but I want to do it outside Colombia, like in Berlin, Houston or London, but searching this kinds of jobs are hard… What can I do? any ideas??? some one can help me???
Hi,
Well, here in Brasil there is not such a thing as practice semester.
You need to work at least 600 hours in a Design Company to graduate, during the period of the course.
Anyway, I think it will not be easy to find a internship abroad.
Make a nice portfolio presentation and send it to a bunch of design companies you like. Make a short letter explaining your situation too.
Raf.
What you’re looking for is generally called a Co-op or Internship. They are around, but generally companies have a habit of picking from a group of schools they have experience with (typically somewhat local).
Sites like Coroflot will list intern positions if you do a search.
Damn right it’s hard! It’s harder getting your foot in the door of a company before you have a qualification than it is after. But I think it’s wise of you to go further afield (or at least attempt to) for your internship, it’ll be good for you to experience another culture along with learning at your internship.
Recommendations: as aforementioned, Coroflot. For the UK, maybe call Adrem (www.adrem.uk.com) which is a creative recruitment consultancy, they might be able to help you or at least point you in some directions. Elsewhere is Europe, I think you’re just going to have to call up / e-mail any consultancy you like and ask them! Again, Core has a good firm listing (www.designdirectory.com). It’s going to take you ages, but that’s what it takes. Best of luck!
Thanks for all your tips, I guess I´l have to nock on a lot of doors (sending my portfolio and my proposal to the companies I like ) to see if someone accept me, gorgeous thanks for the links! I will check them out, London is the first place in my list to do an internship, so again… thanks. If some one have other ideas or companies that need new blood and new perspectives (specially in product design) please don´t hesitate to share the info (maybe some one besides me are searching this type of info), and if some one is interested to see some of my work please contact me to send my portfolio or check my improvised web page (only photos) for some photos Camilo Alvarez Gardeazabal | Flickr or videos http://www.youtube.com/user/camalvarez feedback is welcome!
Thanks (again)