Before my internship
During our third year of the Communication Science studies, we had to do an internship. In the beginning, I was overwhelmed. I had no idea where to look for an internship, how to apply, how to ace a job interview, and how to come up with a suitable research question for the paper we had to write for university. But one thing I was certain of: I wanted to work in the field of political communication and journalism.
So, over the summer, I looked for internships in the political field on the internet. I was disappointed after browsing through the basic websites such as Indeed, Glassdoor, and LinkedIn because they did not provide internships that I was interested in. But then I found a website called Trusted Job which offered many EU-related jobs and internships.
Starting my work at ECIT Foundation
After discovering that website I applied for an internship at ECIT Foundation. They came back to me quickly and after my job interview, they offered me the internship. ECIT Foundation is a Belgian civil society organization located in Brussels, at the heart of the European Union. ECIT stands for European Citizens’ Rights, Involvement, and Trust. The foundation is a European think-tank, solely devoted to European citizenship.
After having found this internship, I was very happy that I found one in an area that interests me. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, I had to work remotely. But after one month of the internship, I have decided that I had to go to Brussels for our Annual ECIT Foundation Conference. On the one hand, I wanted to meet all of my coworkers in person, and on the other, I wanted to witness the Brussels Bubble firsthand.
Discovering Brussels
I’d never been to Brussels before, but the moment I arrived, I felt like I’d walked into politics. The first day we took the bus to the office. After five minutes we had to get out of the bus: the police had blocked the street and the bus could not go any further. We could hear helicopters buzzing above us. After getting out of the bus and walking the last 30 minutes to the office I asked my colleague what was going on. But she just looked at me and laughed: “Ah that’s pretty normal here. It happens to me like once a week. There is just some high-ranked politician arriving. But this is nothing – you should have seen the city when Joe Biden was here. THAT was insane.”
Brussels’ celebrities
After that, let’s say a special, first impression of the city, I participated in my first conference. Several members of the European Parliament also joined. The vice president of the European Parliament Fabio Massimo Castaldo was giving a statement about our headline ‘Reclaiming European Citizenship’. I felt like I met many celebrities that day.
After the conference, we went to a restaurant to celebrate the success of our conference. Our team consisted solely out of young people, most of whom were students, so we decided to have a drink together. When we were at the restaurant my Italian colleague got all excited, turned to me, and whispered: “Oh my god, do you see that? There is Brando Benifei! He is the best!”. (Benifei is an Italian MEP) Once more, I felt like I arrived in Politics. I thought here, in Brussels Bubble, politicians are the real celebrities. And I wondered if my colleagues would be as enthusiastic if she saw Beyoncé.