Martina Schorbahn at Saigei Limited, Great Britain

Where to start?

The thought to go abroad was developing very fast, but what kind of stay should it be - an internship or yet another semester at university?

Since I was on the verge of finishing my masters I decided to look for an internship and since I wanted to improve my English I wanted to go to an English speaking country. But where should I start?

Similar to Germany there are numerous web sites with placement offers. Hereby it would be really helpful if you know in which direction your intended internship should go. In addition you should decide in advance whether you are willing to pay for an agency or if you want to search on your own.

Besides searching on web pages for the according country you could also look on homepages of international companies and check if there are any offers for your preferred location.

A very helpful agency for internships in the UK (which is where I found the offer as business analyst that I finally took) is placement UK - http://www.placement-uk.com/. This agency tries to find suitable candidates for different types of companies and different to other agencies charges the employer once they found an intern. This company also conducts a first interview with the applicant before forwarding the application to the according company.

The preparation for this first interview was not an easy one. But after having that first initial interview the fear of talking English reduced and I was looking forward to the proper one with Saigei, the company I applied for.

Only one day after the interview I got an email saying that I was offered the placement as business analyst and looking back I think this is, when the work starts.

Since the UK is a European country I didn't have to look for visa or working permissions, but still had to prepare lots of things for my stay (i.e. searching for accommodation, applying for a scholarship and clarifying things regarding health insurance and bank accounts).

What regards accommodation I decided to look for a flat share and found the web sites http://www.easyroommate.com/, http://www.spareroom.co.uk/ very helpful for my search. The advantage of living in a shared house it that you immediately get to know some people over there as it might be a bit more complicated to "make friends" amongst your colleagues and since it isn't that easy to meet people of your age as it might be at university.

My bank account I opened on-site with HSBC who offer a passport account especially for people that stay in the UK for a limited time (http://www.hsbc.co.uk).

The Job Assignment

As the job title "Business Analyst" is suggesting the position included lots of (statistical) analyses. But other than you might think now this didn't imply sitting in an office and crunching data all the time!

During the placement I supported Saigei Ltd., a small consultancy company working exclusively for the NHS, in preparing, executing and evaluating a new model of care called PACE (standing for Post Acute Care Enablement), which included many on-site appointments in the participating hospitals and was also theme of my Masterthesis.

Following this assignment I provided many more hospital data analysis in order to gain arguments for performance improvements (i.e. patient flow from admission to discharge from hospital).

The position with Saigei gave me a really deep insight into the National Health Service and the numerous assignments with different hospitals across the UK led to various (cultural) experiences.

Additionally this assignment was a very good opportunity to combine my two fields of studies (i.e. health economics during my Bachelors and logistics and e-Business during my Masters) and offered the chance to transfer theoretical knowledge gained through my studies to the practice.

Social Life

The company has its offices in High Wycombe, the largest town in Buckinghamshire, situated in a deep valley in the Chiltern Hills. Due to its location close to London (which is about 35 minutes away by train) and Oxford there are numerous things to do that would take too long to post them here.

Thanks to communication platforms such as studivz and facebook I got to know many other European students (mainly au-pairs) after searching for "High Wycombe" or "new in High Wycombe" on the named web sites.

Another Highlight and in my opinion a must see was my trip through Scotland, starting at the east coast, going all the way north and back at the west coast. Again listing all the sights and places to go to would take too long but I can only recommend taking some time to travel through this beautiful country. A great alternative to expansive hotel stays is an overnight stay in a Bed & Breakfast (B&B) place. This option allows keeping the route spontaneous (especially during autumn when there aren't that many tourists any more) as you don't have to book rooms in advance. Although it took some time to get used to the left-hand traffic renting a car or joining other people for day trips was a good thing to do, as there are lots of other things to see in and around Buckinghamshire and London (e.g. Brighton, Stonehenge, Blenheim Palace, Stratford-upon-Avon (birthplace of Shakespeare), Neasden Temple, ...).

I enjoyed my stay in the UK very much and although I never got used to the amounts of tea British people consume every day I really enjoyed the British culture. The people I met were very open and helpful and wanted my stay to be as good as possible.

Looking back I can hardly remember any bad experiences. My stay was accompanied by professional as well as private success and I really recommend considering this opportunity as it leads to unforgettable experiences, offers the opportunity to make friends around the world and is last but not least a plus on your CV.