Getting a glance of the university life

“Oh, you are a senior… what are you going to study?” This is one of the most dreadful questions anyone can ask  any student cursing their last year in high school. Their hands start sweating, legs start shaking, and a cloud of mixed feelings gets all over their heads. Senior year is both the most stressful and exciting year. June arrives, and seniors feel the pressure to choose the correct path: the path that will practically decide their whole future, their success, and their happiness.

Eafit is known for being the second home for most of The Columbus School alumnis. However, some students in the TCS community decide to join the Eafit bandwagon before even graduating high school. This university persuades students to join internships to help them decide what career they want to undertake. Seniors and juniors are the only ones that can take the internship and ,if they do decide to keep on with the career, they don’t need to take the class as freshmen in university.

Pros of the internship

“In the internship we basically take the introduction to the international business course, and we have the class that every freshmen student has,” said Camila Restrepo.

Restrepo is a TCS junior who is looking into her future since she started 11 grade. She wanted to experience the internship since she was going back and forth between two careers. Therefore, Restrepo decided to take matters into her own hands and do the internship to make her decision much easier.

“I wanted to experience what it was like to study international business since it is one of my top choices of a career,” said Laura Agudelo.

Agudelo has been interested in studying international business since the first day of her junior year. When she heard she actually had the chance to take a class that was part of the career she was thrilled.

“Taking the internship  was very helpful because they gave me a lot of tips, and I am more motivated to study political science,” said Antonia Osorio.

Osorio is a senior student that already took  the internship. She expressed how relieved she felt when she started the internship and she loved it.

“It was the step that I needed to take in order to be completely sure of my career decision,” said Osorio.

 

The cons of the internship

“Since it’s not the whole career, you just know a bit, and if you don’t like that class, you may hesitate on choosing that career just because of one class,” said Agudelo.

The International business career has more than 7 classes per semester, this is why one of the major drawbacks of the internship is the minimal information that the students get from one class.

Sofia Montoya is a Montessori alumni that is on her second semester of international business at Eafit university.When asked about the class that the students take, she stated, “It  is part of the career, but there’s so much things that go into the career that you don’t get to see; personally, if I had taken the internship, I wouldn’t be studying international business”.

“It takes a lot of our time, we need to study for case studies, projects, and exams. We have the same amount of work that freshmen have, only that we have school as well,” TCS junior student, Simon Escobar said.

Escobar, Agudelo, and Restrepo are taking the same internship this year. Their class begins at 6 pm every Tuesday and it ends at 9pm, in consequence they arrive home at 10 pm every single week.

 

Difference between school and university

“In the university environment you have so much freedom, studying is a right not an obligation,” said Restrepo.

Many people in the TCS community state that the best thing about university is the freedom that everyone has, however, freedom also comes with more responsibilities.

“We learn to be more mature because we interact with people that are starting in university,” said Escobar.

He explained that when he is in the internship he tries to act more maturely and he gets to see that everyone is really focused and no one is joking around.

“When you are in school, you are guided all of the time, in university you need to take your own choices, your own decisions and you need to deal with consequences on a bigger picture,” said Osorio.

Osorio expressed that she is really excited to become a freshman, but she also revealed that the university environment comes with a lot of baggage that comes hand in hand with the freedom that the students are given.

Regardless of the mixed reviews,everyone that took the internship or is taking the internship manifested that it is a real eye opener about the real university experience.

“You should take the internship, there is nothing to lose, either way you’ll learn something: if you should persuade the career or if you should choose another one.” Osorio concluded.