After I graduated from a university in Japan, I studied English in the US and I interned at a Japanese owned company in Silicon Valley. I’m now working at a foreign corporation of online retail logistics center in Japan.
My decision to pursue an internship is because I wanted to change my job. I was working at a company for three years in Japan but I grew tired of my job. Also I had always wanted to work in the U.S one day since I had studied English in the U.S. Meanwhile, I found out about the paid internship program through my friend.
I fairly had confidence with my English but when I first came to the U.S, I confronted the hard reality.
The host company was a maker of semiconductors in Silicon Valley. They imported semiconductor equipment component and supplied them to customers who are in the U.S. Although, I followed directions in the beginning, since the office was small and had limited recourses, I eventually became more responsible for a lot of things even though I was only an intern. It was a challenging career and I liked the atmosphere.
There are two differences between companies in Japan and companies in America. First, there is no gender discrimination in the U.S. The government regulates it in the Employment Act strictly to make equal for all age, gender, race, and etc.
Second, if you don’t say what you want to say, no one will understand. In another word, if you say something, it goes well. There is no “guess” culture here like Japan so I said what I wanted to say and it went well.
After I came back to Japan, I looked for a job which has these two conditions: career pathway and opportunities for female staff. In my theory, these two conditions is a good measure of whether or not the company cares about the employees. I’ve finally found hope at a job and I want to become an area manager.
To people who are considering to apply for an internship, I can say that living overseas is not easy; much less work in unaccustomed areas is very hard. I recommend having certain levels of goals to participate to the internship program. I had a goal to network as much as possible. I went to go to school and attended seminars in order to networking actively which helped me to establish valuable connections. If you take your goals seriously, then you will get what you want.
