Aside from being the second-largest continent globally and considered the ‘Mother Earth,’ Africa is home to numerous breathtaking sites. You’re sure to find attractive places, ranging from the Victoria Falls in Zambia/Zimbabwe, Lake Naivasha in Kenya, to the Avenue of Baobabs in Madagascar. Besides, Africa is also less-costly to tour. On average, you can spend up to $150 per day seeing sights in Africa. But being a student, especially one on a medical student internship, offers you the opportunity to navigate several beautiful sites in Africa with less or no costs attached. To become such an intern, you can visit this website to get started.
But the question remains, how can you utilize your internship period in Africa to see the many beautiful places? Listen. Take a deep breath, relax, and read on. This post will tell you how.
Why You Should Explore Africa As An Intern
If you choose to take the term ‘sightseeing’ for what it is basically, you may wonder why you’d want to take a little break from your internship program and see some sights you care nothing about.
Ready for a shocker? Sightseeing in Africa is beyond what it is. Below are two primary benefits you enjoy when you explore Africa as an intern:
- Knowledge: When you explore Africa, you learn new practical things. A good internship program in Africa provides you with suitable places and people to learn from. It opens interns to the history of humans, diversity, and tolerance needed to grasp your profession comprehensively.
- Pleasure: Interns hardly experience a stressful internship in Africa, and this is due to the many beautiful things the continent offers. Exploring Africa provides you with fun and pleasure you can’t get anywhere else. From learning the African language to feeling the people’s warmth, interns are in for a thrill.
Exploring Africa: How Internship Students Do It
Students on internships in Africa enjoy moments of learning and fun. They learn while touring the beautiful continent. Therefore, they get to see many fabulous places. But how do they go about it? Here are things to note:
1. Researching Different Intern Options
In general, an internship is a procedure that allows you to get practical experience in a career. Being realistic enables students to learn on the field and while at the job. Since volunteering is also about practicality, many great internship programs are not devoid of good volunteering opportunities.
That said, several non-profit organizations provide internship options in Africa. While some of these NGOs are based in the continent, others are foreign-based. Nevertheless, they share the same objective: to cater to the people of Africa, share in their experiences, and provide them with maximum benefits.
Additionally, some intern programs offer recreational activities, such as tour groups, treks, and safaris, while others don’t. Therefore, before you get into any internship opportunities, it’s best you research. Take a list, then, one after the other, find out what provisions they make for tourism. Check how flexible the provision is, and compare. Base your decision on your preference.
2. Utilizing Volunteering Opportunities
Volunteering as an intern means helping out. While it’s primarily optional, you hardly can resist not engaging in it as an intern in Africa. Many non-profit medical internship programs in the continent, for instance, host a bunch of optional volunteer services to help students familiarize themselves with Africa — its locality, people, culture, and heritage.
So, you should take note of all African-based volunteer services within and outside Africa if you’re to sightsee. Also, you can check out the localities where they’re focused. What are the exciting aspects of each locality? Do they include the kind of sights you’d like to see? If yes, you should work towards joining that volunteer train.
Making The Most Of Your Internship In Africa
One beautiful thing about Africa is that you don’t need to wait for volunteering opportunities to explore. You can see places wherever you are and make the most of your program through the following ways:
3. Engaging With The Locals
Whether on your intern ground or a volunteer place, make friends with the locals. You may not be privileged to see every location you intend to, but you can see all the places you wish to see by bonding with a local friend.
Since your internship is primarily for educational purposes, you may not have all the time to go sightseeing. But a local friend can show you around or give you a detailed story behind every historic place in the area. That person can vividly paint the origin of the locality’s culture, ranging from food, clothing, games, occupation to language.
All this knowledge is part of the factors that establish a bond between you and the community. Therefore, sightseeing in Africa is more than just visiting a place, looking around, and wowing your audience. It’s more about understanding the people and fostering cultural tolerance and appreciation.
4. Asking Questions
Many individuals (interns and non-interns) go sightseeing in Africa but come back empty-handed. They only see hills and nothing else. Why? They fail to ask questions On Student Internship.
Asking questions like On Student Internship: ‘Why is this place included as worthy of being seen?’ ‘What’s the history behind it?’ ‘What does it mean to the people?’, and others will help you capture experiences beyond the frames of your physical eyes. They’ll make the sightseeing trip a memorable and treasurable experience.
5. Be Open-Minded- On Student Internship
Cultures differ. Some will appeal to you, and others won’t. If you go sightseeing with the mindset that the people, culture, and environment are backward, devilish, or inferior, you won’t see anything appealing and beautiful. And what is the point of sightseeing if you don’t enjoy it?
So, get your mind ready for the unexpected in every locality you find yourself in. Respect and appreciate the people for who they are, and you’d adore the moments you spend seeing their heritages.
Conclusion
Sightseeing in Africa is an activity that many people, especially interning students, look forward to. But the challenge is: how to afford it. As an interning student, this is almost a non-issue. You can plan your research and find an internship offer that provides tourism funds. You can also volunteer to help out in specific localities and use the opportunity to see some beautiful places.
