Amauta Spanish School

Placement organization

Name of organization: Amauta Spanish School
Town/city: Buenos Aires
Country: Argentinië

Student

Name of student: Maaike van Roermund
Website: http://www.amautaspanish.com
Name of student: Maaike van Roermund
Specialist area: MTT
Placement period: 2012-2013

Information about placement organization

Type of organization: Spanish School & Volunteer Work
Organization’s activities: Spanish School & Volunteer Work
Target group of the organization: Everybody who is eager to learn Spanish
Company culture: Everything is in Spanish, but they all can speak English. Everybody is very helpful and wants you to learn Spanish as well. I felt welcome since day one.Number of employees: 10
Dress code: casual
Did the organization meet the agreements you made beforehand? Yes

Information about your placement

In which department(s) are you working? Online and Offline marketing
Brief description of your daily activities: Every day I started at 9 am. except on Mondays then I needed to start at 8.30 am. I welcomed the students every morning made some coffee for them and I looked for new mails. Every day is very different because you have all kinds of different students. From Tuesday till Thursday there are free activities and I was responsible for it. Also I needed to make an extra activity every week, which is really nice to do because you learn more about the country and culture. I made a lot of promotion movies and I made promotion for the school. Every day and every week is different which was important for me.
Brief description of your company assignment: I made a competitor analysis with 3 other companies. AMAUTA gave me also an assignment were I was working on.
Comment briefly on your supervision by the organization: My supervisor was really friendly. There are some times that you will hate or frustrated you, but after talking with her you will understand her. The other is also very nice and you will be more helping her than the other. They want you to have a great experience but also want you to improve your Spanish because they are a Language School.
Connection with study program: Relevant

Requirements for students on placement

What kind of personal skills are required for this placement? Sociable, enthusiastic, flexible, responsible, kind, patient.
Additional company requirements for this placement? Word, Excel, Powerpoint, windows movie maker (could be helpful)
English: Advanced
Spanish: Basic
French:
German:
Italian:
Other languages:

The trip

Mode of transport to reach your destination: Airplane

Accommodation

How did you arrange your accommodation? The first 4 weeks I lived in the residence of AMAUTA which was nice in the beginning because you meet a lot of new people, but working and that much people wasn’t good for me. So I arranged with the other intern an apartment. Houses are very expensive here but definitely use craiglist.com for finding a room.
How did you go to work every day? I could walk to my work which would take me 30 minutes, but most of the time I used the public transport such as metro or busses.

Visa / work permit / vaccinations

Do you need a visa? No, you can work on tourist visa but you need to get out of the country after 90 days.
Do you need a work permit? No.
How did you arrange the necessary documents: I didn’t need to do anything with it.
How much time did it take to arrange the necessary documents?
Did you need certain vaccinations? Yes, DTP, Buityfus, hepetitus A/B, gele koorts (recommended), fo0r 3 weeks before but better to go earlier.

Language course

Did you take a language course before you started your placement? Yes
Would you recommend to have a language course prior to this placement? Was offered by the company.

The costs in euros

Travelling expenses (e.g. return ticket): € 1200,00
Accommodation (monthly): € 300,00 – 400,00
Local transport (monthly): € 15,00
General costs of living (monthly): € I don’t know
Costs of visa: n/a
Costs of work permit: € n/a
What did the company pay for/to you? € My Spanish course

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? Yes, because in Argentina time is really nothing and not important. So when you want to arrange something you always don’t know if they are on time. Also everything takes a lot of time to plan which means you need to be patient or always asking and pushing. But besides that in AMAUTA you don’t see it that often. I love it that they aren’t really strict in Argentina.

Future students on placement

My telephone number: 0618878935
My e-mail address: maaike.mvr@gmail.com

Other information

Recommendations on what to do and what not to do: Definitely enjoy everything you can do here! Don’t stress about everything it always finds its way. Go more into the culture then you will understand why I loved it and most of all, go to Palermo for a nice night out or good restaurants!
Don’t go to the south of Buenos Aires that is really dangerous.

Leisure possibilities in the city/surroundings of where the placement took place: Palermo SoHo is really the place to be for a nice night out, but because there is not really a center you can go everywhere.

Media

Youtube linkYoutube video internship