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Internship on Emerald Isle

Sixteenth century architecture soared upward, blue sky, a cool summer breeze and Irish accents rushed past Alyssa Gaynor’s ears as she walked to her office across Trinity College’s Dublin campus.

Gaynor, a senior Math major, spent two months of her summer in Dublin, Ireland as an intern to the Health Policy Management department of Trinity College Dublin working as a data scientist.

Gaynor said: “If you can get a chance to study abroad or take an internship abroad, it doesn’t matter which. Absolutely do it. Make it happen. It gets daunting when you think about the prices at first, but if you plan ahead a lot, it’s absolutely worth it. It’s a pretty small percentage of people who actually take advantage of study abroad and I absolutely recommend it to everyone.”

Trinity College Dublin lies in the middle of the capital city next to the River Liffey. According to Gaynor, the department she worked for performed surveys, studied statistics and used what they learned to influence Irish health policy. Gaynor’s job was considered remote working, so long as she had the equipment she needed she could work anywhere she liked. Because of this, Gaynor spent time working in the office and in a local coffee shop

Gaynor said: “I had a great time. I made several friends with the people that worked there. I made friends with one lady that would come in, and she and I actually took a trip together down to Howth, which is a cute little fishing village in Dublin County. I met a lot of other travelers and made a lot of friends.”

Along with her trip to Howth, Gaynor also traveled to the Cliffs of Moher, Galway, Kilkenny and Glendalough in Ireland and visited Barcelona in Spain with her fellow interns. Gaynor’s summer internship will no doubt help her in her future career and it has given her perspective and insight about the world she lives in.

Gaynor said: “There’s a lot of amenities I like about living in the U.S., but it’s important to realize there are other ways of living. And I think that was the biggest thing that I learned. You just have to go outside and try something different. You don’t have to do it forever, you just have to try it.”

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