Karim El Oteify Internship Testimonial

Where did you do your internship and what is your position?

My internship was a bit different – I actually utilized the internship period to focus on running my company, BGMT, a Rotterdam based company that I founded with a couple of IBCoM colleagues. It's a content platform focused on the experience of young expats in the Netherlands.

What were your main tasks?

I am the editor in chief of the platform, which means I work Primarily on creating, writing,and editing the written content of our website - bgmt.nl and representing the brand publicly.

How did you find this internship?

Well, to be honest, I was having a pretty rough time finding an internship which satisfied me on both professionally and personally so I decided to try my hand at creating one ;) The process of setting up a company was difficult and long, with a lot of setbacks along the way, but totally worth it, and I would lie if I said I'm not proud of our platform and our team.

How do you work from home and manage to stay productive?

Working from home was definitely a challenge, but I was lucky enough to have to deal mostly with the legal aspects of setting up the company for a good while. This meant that I still had to do a lot of trips outside of the house - all of them keeping in mind corona regulations, of course. I also had a very helpful team to support me, and I believe the fact that we are responsible for the ultimate success or failure of the company helped keep us disciplined and focused.

Any tips for students looking for internships?

I’d say my biggest tip is be brave! Go out there and look for what you feel is right for you and if you feel like it’s not out there then, go and create it. If you have an idea that you feel is the right thing to pursue, go find the right people, utilize the resources that IBCoM offers you, and just make it happen. Take the risk and plunge into it, you never know where you’ll end up!