Living in London for the past month has presented me with a number of challenges. While the experience has been incredible in many ways, I can’t say I haven’t experienced a fair amount of culture shock. In addition to being in another country for the first time in my life, I have also been adjusting to living in a big (and busy) city, which I have never done before.
Learning to navigate the tube and buses has been both convenient and at times, challenging. Adapting to the teaching style here, which is much less direct than what I have experienced in the United States, is interesting. Even just the sheer amount of people in the city, using public transport and going about their lives has been a form of culture shock. Most of all, however, I have found that my biggest cultural confrontation so far has been my work environment. After a month, I am much more comfortable, but when I first started, I was entirely out of my element. I am interning with a non-profit organization, and specifically assisting with their social venture. At home, I have volunteered with a number of organizations similar to the one I am interning with now, but I have never worked with one, and I think that may have impacted my expectations. This is the first time I’ve been on the other side of the process.
Each summer, I intern with a multinational corporate company, and I have found that every assignment is clear, with distinct objectives, resources, and guidelines. Working with a nonprofit dealing with homelessness in a country facing an energy crisis and quickly approaching a severe winter season has been a complete 180. The environment is much more urgent and projects need to be planned and executed much more quickly. The guidelines are not as clear and each project is a learning opportunity not only for myself but for everyone working with me. My internship lost a lot of employees over the past year due to the threat of job insecurity in this industry, so there are many plans that were left incomplete as well as ongoing projects that aren’t entirely documented and so have to be picked up in the middle.
At first, I felt that I wasn’t being provided the resources or knowledge that would enable me to be useful in my position. From my internship course, I had been warned that the UK workplace culture was noticeably more vague than the US workplace, so I felt this is what I was experiencing; a frustrating vagueness. Through more open communication with my supervisor, getting to know my coworkers, and going through old documents/explanations/handovers, I realized that I was facing an opportunity rather than a challenge. Even though I am entirely used to more guidance when working in the US, I realize now that instead of being frustrated, I could look at this as a growth opportunity to bring my own experiences into my projects while also learning from the knowledge and experiences of my coworkers who have all been in this field for longer than I have.
Living and working in the UK – specifically in London – coming from the United States is a set of experiences that you can prepare for but that you can’t understand until you’re actively doing them. Each cultural confrontation that I have come across, and there have been more than I was expecting, has allowed me to reflect on what I know and what I am comfortable with.