AIFS Abroad Reviews 693

I really enjoyed my internship and this program! I had an amazing internship experience and got to meet life long friends along the way. I would definitely recommend this program to someone who want to have a work experience and study abroad!

Hi! I was apart of the Spring 2024 intern abroad program in Florence. I had the best time ever! I will be honest though, the experience is not easy. As an intern abroad you have to balance time very well with social life and work life. I worked 40 hours weeks most weeks and traveled on the weekends. It is exhausting. Luckily I had a great group of girls I was living with and we really bonded over our experience in the program and helped each other vent and get through the hard parts. The placement I had was the perfect type of internship, which is great because I needed the experience. Although, working in a different countries does have some hardships. I am a pretty personable person and the language barrier made it very hard for me to make connections with the people in the office with me, a lot of the time they would speak in Italian and I knew very little. It felt a little lonely and I have never been in a work environment where I wasn’t friends with those who I was working with. It definitely became a really tiresome feeling and I dreaded going to the internship towards the end. I also did not need credit and was doing this for experience so working as much as I did burnt me out kind of fast. I had hoped there was a part time position or option but that was not possible. But in all I had a really great time, I will say whatever you do on the weekends makeup for the weeks that you may have lows so just keep yourself busy and enjoy being abroad! The experience was once in a lifetime and I would definitely recommend!

I am extremely happy with this program and I beyond grateful to have had this opportunity to study abroad and have all the support from AISF. I would recommend this program to anyone who is interested in studying or interning abroad. While I can not speak for other locations, my experience in Milan, Italy was very rewarding.

My experience with AIFS was great. My program leaders, Antonella and Amanda, were super resourceful and welcoming. I couldn't have asked for better leaders! I think the internship placements should be someone who is actually on the grounds talking to the company/interns, because what might look good on paper might not play out in real life. The accommodation was in a great location of the city.

AIFS advisors are super helpful. The internship was busy work and not educational but the extracurriculars were fun.

AIFS Milan was a wonderful experience, I felt supported by my program leaders and the program provided helpful resources to prepare me for my internship

Great time with my host company and program coordinator, I am happy with the people I was assigned. I appreciate helphousing and Lourdes a lot, they made my experience worthwhile.

Only things that I wish were different were the small housing issues we had to deal with during the entire time here, but I appreciate all of the efforts of the staff to fix things as much as possible.

The on-site staff in Milan, Amanda and Antonella, truly make this trip what it is. As someone whose internship and classes were completely remote, it was often hard to be able to get out and see Milan. But, they ad great events planned and helped us to get together and go out and do things in and around Milan. I believe the trip would have been made better if my internship had been in person.

Edu was a wonderful manager!!!! The schedule worked well. It was busy but not too busy. I felt like I got the full experience I paid for!

Aside from Europe just being an amazing place to visit and travel, what made this trip for me was the people. This program has some great people involved. Edu, our travel guide, was the greatest person we could have asked for. Edu was kind, calm, calculated, and just a great all-around person to be around. He made everyone feel safe and was great at communicating. It was obvious an unbelievable amount of planning went into this trip, which made it almost stress-free for the students. It never felt like people didn't know what was going on. Even when things would go wrong Edu and Linda (our professor) would swiftly and calmly get everyone back on track. We had an issue with one of our tours being canceled but by the end of the afternoon, Edu and Linda were able to shift adapt and get us into a completely different museum to continue our learning. It was impressive! Linda was so understanding and friendly while also being able to teach an incredible amount in such a short time. I could not have asked for a better professor. I can't see a world where someone would regret going on this trip. I think about it daily even months after my return. I would strongly advise anyone who is thinking about choosing to study abroad to stop thinking and just go!

AIFS made my study abroad experience fufilling with great classes and more cultural local events than I could choose from. The team was supportive and informative, which made communicating with them a breeze.

I think it would have been more helpful to have more information on what the day to day would actually look like, my program really wasn't what I expected but I ended up making the best of it and having a good time.

Edu Padial made everything run smoothly, and Linda Walker was an incredible teacher. It was a life changing experience, and I would recommend friends to participate in their Study Abroad through AIFS.

AIFS did an excellent job when it comes to absolutely everything. It's a very organized program, you get the details of what you will be doing throughout your time in Salamanca along with recommendations of things to do. I highly recommend it. Salamanca is a beautiful city and it's not as small as people say. Be ready to walk a lot.

Studying abroad in Salamanca was one of the best times in my life. Here are a few words I would use to describe Salamanca and my general experience there: peaceful, entertaining, fascinating, beautiful, simpatico, and I-really-want-to-go-back.

All in all, it was academically and personally enlightening- a three-month period of interesting learning, making new friends, embracing the Spanish culture, and learning more about myself.

The AIFS program itself was great, providing many amazing excursions and friendly, useful help when I had inquiries.

The only thing that could use improvement in terms of the AIFS program is inquiry response time before departure and upon return to the US. It was slightly difficult to apply for classes and organize the semester because of this. Not to mention, it has been over two months since my last class, and have not received my transcript back.

Yet, in my opinion, the positivity of the experience itself outweighs these downsides.

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Everything the program did for us was great. The tours, the welcome and farewell meal along with the activities was a good way to welcome everyone and get to know our program director and mates. The information provided about the environment we was getting into was helpful to have out expectations set. The way we got merge into the culture, homestays for example, was good to know how the life in Spain is.
I think that overall the program did a great job bringing their students to a complete unknown country.

My experience with AIFS was amazing! I took an introduction to painting class in Florence and had the best professor. Every weekend trip that AIFS took us on was 100% worth the 19,000 steps a day😂. I decided to study abroad because I wanted to get out into the world and have an adventure and with AIFS I definitely had one. I wish I had the time to study abroad again with them.

AIFS provides help and resources and is happy to assist students with bigger issues that may be hard for the students to deal by themselves.

I am so happy I was able to get this opportunity. Understanding the importance of such unique biodiversity while getting to experience it was very meaningful and I will be thinking about this and the friends that I made for a long time!!!

This experience was terrible. The employees were very rude and they do not show up on time to activities. I would not recommend.