07/01/2019
The Internship Experience
An exciting year behind me, I figured it was time to reflect on some of my personal highlights of 2018. Straight to the point – being part of Arthur D. Little’s Frankfurt Office last summer was my career highlight of the year.
I had spent a couple of years in the automotive industry when I decided it was time for a change. I wanted to experience different industries, work closely with customers and colleagues and increase my learning potential; all of which I seemed to find in management consulting. I had always been a socializer and wondered whether I could manage to find a team of consultants who would value me as a person and my professional opinion. What I found at ADL was far beyond that. Within hours I was surrounded by incredibly knowledgeable colleagues who would not only treat me as an equal member of their team but ask me about my opinion on specific aspects of a major strategy project, actually adapting thoughts I raised. During my three-month internship, I was given the opportunity to prepare and conduct face-to-face workshops with C-level executives of a major client and work side-by-side with senior ADL fellows who constantly coached me and helped me develop my abilities. I took on responsibility for my own work packages and participated in up to three projects at a time. I enjoyed every minute of working within this unique team and I was expectedly gloomy when I had to leave in August to pursue my second master in Portugal. Don’t get me wrong, studying in Lisbon is amazing and definitely another highlight of 2018. But ADL enabled my professional and personal growth to an extent that I had never expected. It’s the culture of innovation, appreciation and collaboration that I like to think back to, even in moments like this, when I am watching the sunset over the Atlantic from my new university’s campus. Sitting here with a glass of “Vinho Verde” in my left, typing these lines to my phone with my right, I am looking forward to meeting all my ADL fellows again, soon.
