How do I look back on my internship in Kuala Lumpur?

"By doing my internship in a completely new environment, I have pushed my own boundaries."

Danielle Vink did her operational internship at the Aloft Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia as a front office intern. She would love to share her reflection on this wonderful and intensive period in her life. 

Completely new invironment

One of the factors that made my internship a success in the Front Office team was that I was 'accepted into the family' right away, I immediately felt at home. The team knows when they have to work hard, and whenever it was a bit quieter, we laughed a lot with each other. Because we worked together five days a week, you really got to know everyone very well and this definitely improves the teamwork. By doing my internship in a completely new environment, I have pushed my own boundaries. I also found out that I find it much more fun and interesting to be in a country with people from a different cultural background. I didn't expect to take this so positively. 

Aloft Kuala Lumpur

Aloft Kuala Lumpur has been a good choice to do an internship. It is a huge hotel (482 rooms) with more than 300 employees with different cultural backgrounds. I wanted to find out if I enjoyed working for such a large international company. I can now say absolutely yes to this. I thought you maybe had nothing to say within such a large company and you were one of its many employees. But it doesn't have to be that way. If the management of such a company is well organized and the norms and values are in line with yours, you can certainly make a difference, even in such a large company. 

Discovering new cultures and countries

By completing this internship, it has become clear to myself what I want to do with the rest of my career at the Hotel Management School Maastricht. Now that I have lived abroad for six months for the first time, I have found out that I would also like to do a minor abroad. I hadn't thought beforehand that I would like to discover new cultures and countries so much! Now that I have gained experience in Asia, I would like to visit another continent for another foreign experience, in order to increase my knowledge of other cultures.

Learning moments

In short, I had a great time! Of course, I've felt alone and emotional from time to time. But I learned from this, and all the fun moments more than made up for it. It's been six months where I've had many learning moments and that I won't forget for the rest of my life. I'm very grateful that I was given this opportunity.

Interested in reading more about internship experiences? Make sure to check out our website!