Given that today a university degree is not valued as it was, for example, ten years ago, it is essential to secure an internship during your studies that will provide you with work and practical experience – which can be very helpful in entering the labour market after graduation. Due to the mentioned experience, as a university student, I was looking for an internship that would suit my field (Sociology and Social Policy at FSV UK), and I was glad that I found it within the IPPS think-tank.
Due to restrictive measures, my experience with IPPS was through e-mails and platforms such as zoom, but I would not say that it somehow limited the benefits of the internship itself. I had the opportunity to participate in the content of the think-tank website, mainly by creating annotations for online debates or translating policy papers or analyzes from English into Czech. So, I had the opportunity to test my language skills. I also tested whether I can use my knowledge of data analysis, specifically when creating graphs.
In particular, I would like to point out the very positive attitude of everyone with whom I had the opportunity to cooperate during the internship. Despite the difficult conditions caused by the situation regarding COVID-19, I always knew what I wanted and how to do it. Online communication went smoothly – after completing a specific assignment, I always received clear feedback, based on which it was easy to evaluate what to do next.
An internship at the Institute for Politics and Society was beneficial for me and that is why I can recommend it to people who are considering it. During it, they can try real work in a think-tank, find out interesting things from the field of politics and also there wouldn’t have a problem with communication within the work team.