Combating ennui in virtual internships
Junior Cameron Garber has several strategies for make a virtual internship feel more like a traditional one.
My internship allows me to explore the world from my kitchen table.
I’m interning for Columbus Travel Media, where I revise and write up-to-date travel guides. Sometimes I work on long overviews of countries or cities, and sometimes I write shorter descriptions to give audiences a taste of what there is to see.
One of my more recent assignments was to write a descriptive guide about Spain for a major railway tour company — I loved it. I felt like I was putting myself in the position of a traveler. I meticulously scanned Spain’s UNESCO World Heritage sites, read countless articles about Spanish cuisine and fully comprehended the history of Spanish train travel.
After what has felt like a millennium of being stuck indoors and online, I was living vicariously through my computer mouse and had the opportunity to see and learn about international destinations that seemed so far out of reach during COVID times.
What’s more is that through this article, I am not just learning about Spain. I learn more about the United Kingdom with each assignment I turn in: how British and international audiences react differently than American audiences, what values should be highlighted for my readers, and what supervisors outside the U.S. are looking for in employees. Further, because the Spanish article was about train travel, I learned more about how Europe is connected and the avenues open for holiday travel between countries.
When my supervisor and I discussed my work over Zoom, I marveled at the interconnectedness of Europe and how, through train travel, one could eat breakfast in London, have lunch in Paris and have dinner in Madrid.
As a Central Indiana resident, I am used to having Chicago as my major getaway destination, and that is still more than three hours away from me. I have to drive to get there, rather than reclining on a train as pastoral scenes pass by the window.
After a year of being shut in and stationary, researching and writing about different countries has helped me see the world and become excited for travel again.