My name is Iro Lykaki, I am 22 years old and I am a fourth-year student in the department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies in the direction of Political Sciences in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Since this was my last year in university, I thought I should try and make the most of it and use the benefits that the university provides. This, alongside the worry of what I will do as soon as I graduate, made me realize that an Erasmus+ Internship is the best option. I started searching through the page of ERASMUSINTERN, to find an internship that I would be interested in. As soon as I was getting disappointed, because I couldn’t find what I had in mind, I came across International Center for Development of Education and Training.
After reading what ICDET is about, I immediately applied for internship. I was really eager to be an intern in ICDET because it is a youth organization, who promotes personal growth, action and European values through implementation of different kind of projects. I believe that by engaging in activities and projects with an international and intercultural aspect empowers young people, like myself, to become active citizens and make an impact on the word. What is more, creative youth engagement programmes brings together different cultures and bridges gaps. I really appreciated also the fact that I could choose in which field of work I could involve, according to my interest and knowledge.
Furthermore, the fact that I speak bulgarian was also one of the reasons why I chose to come. Living and working in a bulgarian speaking environment is a desirable challenge for me, because despite the contiguity between Bulgaria and Greece, the working culture between these two varies in many aspects.
This internship I expect to expose me to many new challenges and help me gain professional experience, while involved in a real working environment. Also, I expect to provide me the ability to improve my soft skills, have practical experiences and enhance my future career.
I hope that this internship will give me the opportunity to get a better insight of the bulgarian culture, as well as to further improve my language skills. Not only that, but also to develop my personality and to broad my horizons through my expose to an intercultural environment, meet new people, and make new friends.
While I am here, I would like to learn and offer as much as I can.