Gemini

Placement organization

Name of organization: Gemini
Town/city: Istanbul
Country: Turkije
Website: http://www.geminiturkey.com

Student

Name of student: Hedi van Heugten

Specialist area: ITMC
Placement period: 2013-2014

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: DMC
Organization’s activities: Mice department is responsible for organising tailor made meetings, incentives, conferences and special events for groups in Turkey, mainly in Istanbul
Target group of the organization: Mainly European Markets
Company culture: Informal between colleagues but very formal towards to bosses.
Number of employees: around 40
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Most of them

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Gemini Mice
Brief description of your daily activities: making powerpoint presentations, which mainly exists of the copy-pasting of old presentations.
scanning papers
writing English emails for my colleagues
calling clients for my colleagues
looking up contact information for potential clients
making a weekly newsletter

Brief description of your company assignment: Foreign market analysis
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: Almost no supervision, almost no explanations were given during my intership

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? ability to work independently and in a team
Additional company requirements for this placement? MS office
English: Advanced
Spanish:
French:
German: Intermediate
Italian:
Other languages: Speaking Turkish is very important

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? craigslist
How did you go to work every day? by foot

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? Yes, Erasmus visa
Do you need a work permit? No work permit but a residence permit
How did you arrange the necessary documents: The visa at the Turkish consulate in the Netherlands, and the residence permit at the police station in Turkey
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents? 2 weeks for the visa, about 1 months for the permit (from making the first appointment to getting the permit)
Did you need certain vaccinations? No
How long in advance?

Language course

Did you take a language course before you started your placement? No
Would you recommend to have a language course prior to this placement? Yes, but I believe basic knowledge of Turkish is not enough. Advanced Turkish would help getting more and more interesting work

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 250
Accommodation (monthly): € 270
Local transport (monthly): € 15
General costs of living (monthly): € 250
Costs of visa: € 60
Costs of work permit: € 75
What did the company pay for/to you? Lunch card for about 80euro monthly
and salary, about 200euro

Culture

How did you prepare for the country’s culture?
Not
Did the culture of the country influence your performance during the placement in any way? The hierarchical structure was really shocking in the beginning

Future students on placement

Future students are free to contact me for further information: Yes
My e-mail address: 113584@edu.nhtv.nl

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Speaking the language fluently is a pre.
I did not, as I also did not know about this before, which gave me a lot less and a lot less interesting work compared to another half Turkish & half Dutch intern in the company.
Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: A lot!! Istanbul is a great and huge city with plenty to do for everyone.

Media

Youtube link Youtube placement video link