Internships & Faculty-led

I was very impressed with how organized ABROADER Vietnam was in preparing my internship in Vietnam. The Skype meetings before coming to Vietnam made me feel confident about my safety and expectations during my internship. The Program Coordinator met me at the airport, even though my flight arrived at 1 a.m. The orientation was very thorough and outlined expectations from both myself and the University of Economics HCMC – where I would be working as an intern. During the summer ABROADER checked in with me often to see how I was doing. They even came down to Ho Chi Minh City a few times to visit the other interns and me. Whenever I had a problem, they were always available on Facebook and did their best to resolve it. It is clear that ABROADER Vietnam is a reliable organization that cares about its participants.

I was particularly pleased with the cultural immersion activities and orientation and continuous support throughout the program by the program staff and local buddies. I do not have any feedback for ABROADER. I think the whole program has been very smooth sailing.

I was satisfied with the tasks that I was assigned. I was able to get experience working on a broad range of tasks and experience what software engineering is like in industry. I am very satisfied with the support I received at Nash Tech. My Product Manager was very helpful during the onboarding period and through the internship she made sure to periodically check in on me in particular during company happy hours. My Team Leader then became my main point of contact during the training and for the rest of my internship and I also had a buddy within my sub-team. 

However I do not feel like I was limited to just my sub-team who were very helpful but rather I felt confident to ask anyone in the whole project if I had any question and they were always eager to help and tried their best to explain things to me. I even made friends outside of my own project team.

I think the onboarding and technical training was done very well and was very comprehensive to give me a good high level understanding of the business and the architecture of the project. The support was also excellent throughout the whole program. When I was working on tickets I could always ask questions.

My only feedback which is very minor would have been to get started on tickets (tasks) earlier, like straight after onboarding and technical training. I did the majority of my learning through hands on working on tickets. I think it was quite hard to learn when shadowing someone or even during the technical training without something concrete like a ticket to refer to.

Thank you so much for all your hard work to help make Vietnam as enjoyable as possible!

About work: I think it’s good. We have enough work. I have to make a presentation once or two times a week. My supervisor is so great. He always cares about us. I feel I can communicate with students.

About host family: Alright with host family but I didn’t talk with my family. I sent contact only in Zalo. For a reason Me and Takafumi are hang out with our friends and go back home little bit late so we can’t make time so I never mind to talk with host family

Overall the people have exceeded my expectations, and they are really what’s going to help make my experience in Vietnam a great one. I’ve always loved leaving my country (the US) and having new experiences, so I wanted to do an internship abroad. Having already spent a semester in Europe, I wanted something really different. My mom was born in Saigon and lived there before coming to the United States with her family. So I felt like a good way to get in touch with my culture and my roots would be to spend three months living and working in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In my internship in Vietnam, I have helped with various marketing efforts by giving ideas or designing things. I have learned that, of course, there is a different way of doing business here compared to in the United States. Things are run differently, there’s a different office culture, and there are just always many cultural differences to keep in mind when doing business in a different country, and Vietnam has not been an exception. The people ABROADER have set me up with have been beyond wonderful. Coming to Vietnam on my own seemed very daunting and intimidating, but ABROADER has helped make the transition smooth and seamless. They helped take care of everything I would need during my time here and have gone above and beyond to assure that things continue to go smoothly. I am very appreciative of their support, and it makes the whole thing a little less scary. My local buddies have been so helpful for everything, and I really feel like they are becoming genuine friends. I am generally pretty shy, so it was nice to have friends before even arriving to help introduce me to more people and get me out there. Overall the people have exceeded my expectations, and they are really what’s going to help make my experience in Vietnam a great one.

I was happy with everything else including in-country logistics and visa support, orientation, and city tour and I would definitely recommend this internship in Vietnam to my friends or students who are interested. Though most of my work was limited to observation depending on what department I was placed in, I was able to contribute to the nursing staff by other means (i.e. sorting through medicine to be used for the next day). However, in the ICU, I got to perform all nursing tasks except for mixing drugs as only head nurses could do that task. In addition, I found it really helpful that I had many supervisors at work and they all cared about what I learned from this experience. Regarding my experience with ABROADER Vietnam service, what I appreciated the most was probably the local buddy they paired me with her.

I did a 4-month internship at the National Children’s Hospital in Vietnam. The entire organization for me went really well, all you need is time and patience but when you reach the point where all is settled it went really smoothly and if you have problems you will get help asap and they will find a solution for you. I gained a lot of new experience and was surprised by the highly practical skills of the Nurses and Doctors. Even though not everybody could speak proper English and sometimes communication was hard, there were ways to communicate with colleagues (Google Translate, Body language). All in all, I just can say I would do it again, and I wouldn’t be the person I am today without going on this adventure. The way I see things definitely changed and I go home with new knowledge and some wonderful memories. A big thanks to ABROADER Vietnam and especially Miss Ha who made this all possible.

The team working at ABROADER is beyond special. Each person was welcoming, friendly, and not at all judgmental when we spoke about our struggles and accomplishments. Julie was one of the most caring and supportive managers I have ever met. In addition, buddies like Lemon, Thu, and Kazue, made the experience oh-so-cherishing.
I think there could have been more activities for the interns/casual meet-ups. While the people within ABROADER make the program such a special place, I do wish there had been more opportunities and support to meet other Vietnamese students our age and various activities. At the beginning of the program, it felt as though we were on our own trying to figure out how to live here and I was unsure how to meet more people, especially those my age. I think it would be better if there could be a way to keep student interns busier and a larger sense of community that they would often interact with. In addition, giving students the opportunity to meet with their internship companies before the program would have been incredibly valuable. We were thrown into the company without much information and it took a long time for us to gain the resources and documents to fully understand the company and its mission. I think meeting beforehand would have given us a more productive start so we knew our roles and how to most effectively help the center.

The experience taught me much about flexibility, creative thinking, and collaboration within a nonprofit setting. That being said, I had gone in with the expectation that I would be gaining more exposure to the entrepreneurial/nonprofit world. The responsibilities assigned to us felt more that of an English teacher and activity planner. I very much loved working with the students and creating connections with them at the center, however, I do wish I had gained more exposure within an operation/marketing nonprofit side. It didn’t feel like there was much training. I understand the busyness of the staff at the center, but it was quite difficult to set up meetings or ask questions about our work. They were always supportive, compromised with us often, gave us lots of creative freedom within our lesson plans, and welcomed us into their team (through the yen bai trip, lunches with the team, etc.).

Thank you all so much for your kindness and welcoming spirits. Lemon and Thu, you will always be my first memory here in Vietnam. From the first time we came to meet you all and make spring rolls in the office, you all had this wonderful energy and allowed us to be ourselves unapologetically. You are all such interesting and different people, but I think what binds you is your kindness. I never realized how important being friendly to others and the impact that has is until meeting you all. I am beyond thankful for your help and the hard work you put into all of the activities for us. I will never forget any of you 🙂

The study tour was a great way to experience Vietnam. The academic industry visits provided insights into how the manufacturing industry operates in SE Asia, relevant to our engineering course on Control Systems. Then many cultural experiences helped out understanding the Vietnamese people and how the modern country has been shaped by the conflicts of the 20th century. Visiting the Mekong Delta was a highlight of the trip, living at a homestead and preparing/cooking a traditional Vietnamese meal was amazing. Overall the local buddies that helped us on our trip were amazing, providing us an insight into Vietnam through the eyes of other young adults.