Work

I was working on developing a feature for a platform called CollaborationQ offered by Televic Education in a lot of educational institutes across Belgium and The Netherlands. The internship was to develop an emotion tracking system for the video lecture deployed on the platform for better engagement of students in learning.

Experience

I was staying in Ghent which is a beautiful student town in Belgium. Although my commute to work was a long one, I do not regret it because the work that I was doing was very enriching and the social experience I was getting in Ghent was invaluable. Being a foodie myself I loved the local cuisine, be it the famous Belgian fries, waffles, lamb chops or the 4 AM hamburgers all of these flavours savoured by taste buds. I had the amazing opportunity to stay in an apartment right next to the city centre. It was always a happening place with tourists pouring in every day and stages being set up every weekend for some event or the other. Being very close to The Netherlands, I had taken a trip to Amsterdam with other Indian interns from my university who were working in different parts of Europe. It was truly an amazing experience absorbing the exuberating vibes from the city. Other than that I explored Belgium in all the directions. I visited Brussels, Antwerp, Brugge, Oostende, Dinant, and Kortrijk. I had visited these cities from my fellow interns from Ghent.

Discover

This experience was my first time abroad by myself. To be honest I was very scared the day that I had arrived at Brussels airport but the kind of support that I got from my buddy from IAESTE helped me grow out of my fear to end up loving Belgium a lot. So much so that I am going back to work on another project at the same company in January 2020. This experience has taught me the value of people in one's life. I have grown into valuing people more than any other thing. People share their experiences and you get to learn from them. It is like being a part of multiple stories at the same time while you yourself bring a ton of experience to the table as well. The network of interns and the IAESTE personnel from Ghent have benefited me in numerous ways.