Rising Sea & The Mekong Delta

There are few words that could describe my time here this summer. The time I have spent here has been priceless and life changing, even more than I thought it could be. I learned so much from my nursing internship in Vietnam that will help me very much in my future. However, the life experience I’ve learned, through adapting to another culture, traveling alone to beautiful places and having a sense of home here is something I’ll never forget. The people here have touched my heart, and I’ll have these memories forever. This country, these places and people are beautiful, and I am so happy I came here. It’s inspired me to always follow my dreams, no matter how big they are, and that I can do anything.

Vietnam, from my experience, is a very work-oriented and relationship-oriented country. You must come prepared to work a lot, learn a lot, and you absolutely must not try to apply the logic or expectation that you would have in the West. This will do little to nothing to help you and will hinder your ability to learn. Come here with the mindset of a student, not an authoritative figure. There is much to learn in Vietnam that will be very valuable to you wherever you work or live, and it is important that you come to Vietnam with an open and unexpecting mind, so that when you go home you will have been able to learn, enjoy and apply your experiences to your future in a positive way. Come to Vietnam with the ability to motivate and add value to people’s lives. Set an example for people, and remember that you are at all times representing you country, university and culture, so make an impression that will stand out as a positive one. Make friends as much as possible and when you can try to study the language as much as possible, even if it is just the language that relates to your job. Doing these two basic things will make living and working here quite enjoyable.

I had such an incredible experience as a Public Health Remote Intern in Hanoi, Vietnam. From the support I received to the work I did with my team, I could not have asked for a more positive internship experience. Despite the fact that I was not able to travel to Vietnam, I felt so connected to the people and culture. The relationships I have built and the lessons I have learned are so priceless and humbling. I truly commend this program for the wonderful work they do and I am so incredibly grateful What is your advice to future travelers on this program? The advice I would give as a former intern is to always keep an opened mind and be willing to adapt to unfamiliar circumstances. Flexibility is very important and makes the experience considerably more enjoyable.

The level of support provided from ABROADER Vietnam was great, and I loved the activities where everyone was involved, including the local buddies!

I feel pretty satisfied with my internship journey as it increased my self confidence and my ability to cope with unfamiliar situations. It also further developed my interpersonal communication skills when working with co-colleagues. I did my internship in Chemizol/Culligan Water Vietnam under the supervision and guidance of Chris, who is a very nice person and always cares about me. Besides that, my internship in Vietnam has expanded my curiosity of the world and at the same time gained a greater understanding of my home cultural identity. I wish I could have more time to go to different factories so that I could contact customers and analyze samples. Overall, my 6-week internship is so great!

I realize that the key to develop yourself is to improve your competence in a whole new environment, and coming to Vietnam for an internship accomplished what I came for. I came here because I wanted to have more confidence to speak up my mind in front of other people and it is hard to accomplish these when you are still in your comfort zone.

I had a blast with the remote internship with ABROADER. The cultural sessions were exciting and informative of the way of life in Vietnam. What made this unique for me was the staffs engagement with me and the other students. I liked getting to talk about the differences in cultures and similarities. The staff was always excited to see me and liked talking about my interests as well. I really liked the food cultural sessions and the opportunity to make Vietnamese food in my own home. I think any future participant would like this program if they wanted something outside their comfort zone. It was an entirely different world from the US to Vietnam and I enjoyed every second of it. What was your funniest moment? The funniest moment was when I was caught laughing at a video during a cultural meeting. The video was a music video and had hilarious content and I got called out because the host of the meeting saw me laughing. I thought this was not just funny because the video but also because the hosts were glad I was enjoying the cultural session.