{"id":4608,"date":"2024-01-25T13:58:25","date_gmt":"2024-01-25T12:58:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/?p=4608"},"modified":"2024-01-25T13:58:25","modified_gmt":"2024-01-25T12:58:25","slug":"how-i-accidentally-had-the-best-work-experience-of-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/2024\/01\/25\/how-i-accidentally-had-the-best-work-experience-of-my-life\/","title":{"rendered":"How I accidentally had the best work experience of my life."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I love science, for one. I adore learning about new cultures. I\u2019m passionate about our climate, and nature as a whole. I read at least a book a week, I love to go fossil hunting, and honestly, I could keep naming interests in perpetuity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a position as a guide for whale spotting tours in the Azores was mentioned, my interest was immediately piqued. Surely, this was everything I ever dreamed of in an internship. But it wasn\u2019t meant to be, for they couldn\u2019t offer me an internship as fall was rapidly approaching. Which would put us outside whale spotting season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An internship at Trage Wegen in Ghent, Belgium.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Maar toen, terloops na een les, liet Mevr. Chris Desmet de naam \u2018Trage Wegen\u2019 vallen. Een kleine vzw in het Gentse, die zich bekommert om de Vlaamse trage wegen (autoluwe of autoloze paden). Ik was natuurlijk niet razend enthousiast, immers heb je bij Toerisme- en Recreatiemanagement de unieke kans om de hele wereld te verkennen met je stage. Wie zou er nu in godsnaam in Belgi\u00eb willen blijven? Een kennismakingsgesprek met de gepassioneerde werknemers van Trage Wegen stookte toch een klein vuurtje onder mijn pruttelend enthousiasme. Wanneer ik uiteindelijk ja zei, dacht ik opgetogen dat ik een redelijk toffe tijd tegemoet ging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in reality, I stood in front of a 4-month adventure. Trage Wegen is perhaps, not the most exiting of organisations. Ghent isn\u2019t a very exotic location either. And yet, together they offer one of the best internships. Instead of teaching me how a small TO in Thailand operates, it thought me to hone my journalistic skills acquired in Media Lab, as I got the chance to interview their volunteers across the country. Instead of teaching me the inner working of an airport, it thought me to believe in myself, as they nudged me to explore my interests, and try my hand at a heap of different tasks. Like translating a document van het Nederlands, au fran\u00e7ais, and to English. Ich konnte sogar ein bisschen Deutsch anwenden. Rom\u00e2na mea, nu am folosit-o. Nu e prea bun\u0103.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Or using Adobe Illustrator, a program I barely had any experience with, to make the illustration for their annual newsletter. Or giving me the chance to work on a massive packrafting project spanning from the Meuse to the Yser. They even used my hobbystic photography for reports, interviews, and social media, until it was turned into a professional skill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maar bovenal zal je bij Trage Wegen losgelaten worden om jezelf leren kennen. Jouw passies worden er jouw taken. De Azoren zijn een prachtig gebied, maar ik had er nooit of te nimmer zoveel kunnen leren, zoveel kunnen groeien, als bij Trage Wegen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Geen reacties om weer te geven.<\/div>\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When I first set out to look for an internship for Tourism- and Recreation Management, I knew it was gonna be a hard task. Not because I had no clue where my passions laid, rather because I am naturally curious about a whole heap of subjects…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":914,"featured_media":4613,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[120,23,57,31,25,185,186],"class_list":["post-4608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stage","tag-erasmushogeschool","tag-internship","tag-recreatie","tag-stage","tag-toerisme","tag-toerisme-en-recreatiemanagement","tag-trage-wegen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/111\/2024\/01\/TWIJG-3-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pavQFa-1ck","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/914"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4608"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4630,"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4608\/revisions\/4630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.mm.ehb.be\/trm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}