Erasmus+ Traineeship: Rewards and Benefits
- Gain work experience that will make you more attractive to potential employers.
- Get the chance to work with interesting topics related to your education.
- Improve your language skills and gain intercultural skills.
- Receive funding to help cover living costs during the traineeship period.
- Add an international dimension to your CV (such experience is commonly sought by employers when they are hiring)
- Take advantage of a programme designed to help you take the first step into the job market.
Insurance
During your traineeship period, you are covered by studentUT Insurance: see Insurance (webpage).
Incorporate Your Traineeship into Your Studies
Your traineeship will be registered in Ladok and will be included in an appendix (diploma supplement) in your degree certificate. If the traineeship is part of your programme - i.e., placement for credit - you will received university credits. The mobility period can also be included in your Europass, a document showing your credentials that you yourself create.
You can combine a traineeship with your studies, but the total period must be 3 to 12 months without a break. You can complete more than one traineeship - up to 12 months per level of study (undergraduate / master's / postgraduate).
My name is Christian and I am from Germany. For my bachelor’s degree, I studied Geography at the University of Bayreuth. After that, I spent one year working in Vancouver, Canada, and then I came to Borlänge to do my master’s degree in Tourism Destination Development at Dalarna University.
For my Erasmus+ internship, I decided to work for six months at SSV Jahn Regensburg, which is a professional German football club, currently playing in the second division.
During my time in the beautiful city of Regensburg, I worked in the club’s Media and Communications Department. Since the club is rather small, I was involved in a lot of processes and tasks: it would be impossible to list them all. But my main duties were daily press review and weekly newsletter to internal and external stakeholders, accreditation management of journalists for match days or press conferences, writing news and game reports for the club’s website, writing live feed for the website on match days, writing articles for the club’s monthly stadium magazine, interviewing players or coaches, managing the club’s social media accounts, general photography, video production...
As you can see, I gained lots of insight into the daily life of a professional football club. Most of the things I had never done before, but the team made it easy for me and helped me to adapt quickly. Since rent is high in the city of Regensburg, the Erasmus+ grant was absolutely necessary for me to financially survive the six months. I still needed to use some of my savings for groceries and transportation, but at least the rent was completely covered by the grant.
Thinking about the link between my studies and my internship is quite funny, as they seem not to have anything in common at all. But the marketing course I took during my time at Dalarna University helped me to understand the principles behind my actual work at SSV Jahn, and also the number of essays and assignments I had to write during my studies made it easier for me to quickly come up with ideas for texts and articles for the club’s website and magazine. But of course one of the main driving forces behind my taking this internship opportunity was also my personal passion for football.
Looking back at my internship, I am a little torn. On the one hand, I really enjoyed the work itself. It was never boring; there were always new challenges and tasks, and the club had a very familiar flair. By the end, I knew every single employee, player and coach. Also, the job allowed me to travel through Germany and visit different stadiums because I also attended almost every away game. Whoever is into football will understand how unique it is to experience all this.
On the other hand, there is one thing I need to criticise: the hours. As an intern, I was asked to work 40 hours/week. But once you are familiar with the daily routine and the workload, you feel kind of responsible to help out your team and start working longer hours, keeping in mind that the games are usually played at the weekend, which means additional work. I want to clarify that I was never asked to work longer hours: I did so voluntarily and the match day, of course, was always the highlight of every week. Since I enjoyed the job very much, I did not have a hard time working longer hours. But I am mentioning this because it changed my initial thought about what I want to do forever. Because as much fun as the job is, personally I also need some time for my private life, which might be hard when working in that field.
Now that my internship is over, I am currently applying for jobs in the tourism industry to gain practical experience in my field of study. At the same time, I am working to move back to Vancouver as I fell in love with the city when I was there.