Written by Minerva Ganaden, Internship Program
28th of September – Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) – Terminal 2, was packed with weary travelers, most of them standing and waiting to check-in their luggage. I was waiting in line, seeing my whole family outside the airport. Trying to hold back my tears, even though all I wanted to do was cry and run back to them. I completely remember the boundless tears when I was inside the plane, walking alone from airport to airport, thinking that I kind of regret my decision joining this program. I even feel like I can’t handle it anymore and I just want to run. Travelling from the Philippines to Boston for more than 24 hours without anyone to talk to is the worst part of it. I am tremendously sad, worried what life brings, and what will my life be in 18 months without my family beside me. However, this is it! There is no turning back, this career training program is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I have to be strong, wise, and determined to accomplish my goals. After all, this is my dream. It’s my 42nd week now here in Massachusetts, writing this article, while thinking how time flies so fast.
“Welcome to Isaac’s Moving & Storage,” Ami, the president of the company, said to me when I first came to the office to sign and fill-in the necessary forms. And I said to myself, “Be strong! You can do it. Life is too short and you have to make the most of it.”At first, it’s been a challenging task because you don’t know how the business is operating. I was worried because the entire task that was assigned to me has something to do with money and I don’t want to make any mistakes. But, I make sure I do my tasks with confidence and finish everything on time. It is a matter of priority and attention! The good thing about this career training program, I get to experience how it is being employed: you have to be flexible, considerate, patient and hard-working because this time you’re not the boss. Plus, you want to prove to them that indeed it is the best decision to hire Filipino interns. In fact, they keep telling us that they certainly like interns coming from the Philippines because we are fast learners, conscientious, honest, and speak fluent English.
It’s not easy, but who said life was easy? If you want to be “someone” in this world, expect and accept the difficulties in the way of moving towards it. When I came here to the United States, the first challenge that I had to face was the cultural differences as well as the surroundings. It was a lot of adjustment, yet when you came to the point that you adapt, learn, accept, appreciate, and even admire the differences, that is when you start loving what you’re doing, and enjoy the time working with other people from different countries. This is what I love the most about this career training program; I was able to work with Americans, Russians, Lithuanians, South Africans, Kazakhs, Romanians and more. Furthermore, I keep telling my friends that in this program you will learn many things; it is called a REAL LIFE EXPERIENCE.
It has been said that “Not everything that is learned is contained in books.” There is no doubt that books are the paramount source of mankind’s knowledge. Unfortunately, there is no book that can teach you how to budget your earnings unless you actually do it yourself; you cannot cook a perfect and tasty turkey by just looking at a recipe; and no surgeon performed a successful operation by merely reading medical textbooks. Experience is considered necessary. In addition, hands-on experience will bring you challenges and difficulties allowing you to expand skills necessary to survive and face the real competitive world. Books may tell you a lot of information but the skills can be developed only if you have experienced it yourself. Either way, part of living and growing up is experiencing unexpected troubles in life, it all depends on how you perceive and overcome your challenges and this career training program will indeed help you experience a lot of things. From my perspective, I strongly believe that you will reach your maturity in joining this career training program or internship.
