How an internship program abroad can change the ideas for your future

I'm an engineer in software development and for ever I had been told that anything beyond my bachelors degree would not be of much value for my professional career. And throughout all my years in university I believed that and I stood strong on my plan of obtaining my bachelors and starting focusing on my professional development through employment. But now, here I am applying for international masters programs and actively looking for the opportunity to be abroad and plan/develop ways to be of impact in my areas of interest. That change of perspective came from my limited but rich abroad personal and professional development experiences. I got impressed with how closed of a perspective I had when I originally planned my career path. So, this is what made me make a 180 degree turn on my "Going corporate to ensure a future" plan.

I got the opportunity to be abroad in Washington DC for 3 months doing an internship and attending a summer course at Johns Hopkins SAIS. I was also housed at the International Student house (ISH) of Washington DC. Those experiences immediately let me know that personally it was all about “being of impact” and “reaching others" rather than doing everything for myself. Here is how I came to that conclusion.

My internship experience was amazing but I could not really pursue my personal and professional interests, and the scope of impact is way limited for projects that will only be used internally. So I started questioning myself. Finally through the many people that I got to know at SAIS and ISH I noticed that everyone had something in common. The impact they were trying to reach was aligned to their personal and professional interests. That is when it clicked. If I wanted to design my professional development plan I had to do the following:

1. Find the impact you want to make on others.

2. Align it to your personal and professional interests.

3. Act.

That is how I ended up changing my whole professional development plan, it all came from the diverse points of view that come from leaving your home town. The part of it is that if you love your home town you can always go back and be of impact over there. Almost nothing in this life is a straight line but the plan mentioned previously makes me feel sure about every step I take and has made my professional development journey more enjoyable.