Standing on the hexagonal rocks of Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland.

Author: Bryan Le | Major: Computer Science | Semester: Summer 2025

Cold, rainy, and overcast. Many foreigners, and even the Irish, associate those three words with typical day-to-day life in Ireland. However, if you’re lucky during your visit or stay for two months like I did, you’ll find that Ireland is home to a stunning and vibrant landscape, culture, and people. This was the second year of the Honors College Internship in Dublin program, and I really didn’t know what to expect going into it – it would be the first time I ever worked a proper job on top of living in a foreign country on my own. I was also nervous about the job itself; I had just completed freshman year and had only taken one major-specific class. What if I came in on day one and had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but as hours turned into days into weeks into months, I realized that the island of Éire was a welcoming launch pad for so much more.

            Through a partnership with API Abroad, I was placed in a Software Engineering internship with Réaltra Space Systems Engineering, a 100% Irish owned company specializing in commercial-off-the-shelf electronics and an emerging leader in the European space technology industry. On day one I was reassured that this experience was all about me – if I could make meaningful contributions to the company, that would be great, but all the mattered was that I learned more about myself and the work I want to go into. There were two main projects that I worked on during my internship: a preexisting product known as the Independent Video Kit (VIKI) and a personal project on a tool called Robot Framework. VIKI is a camera system that goes on rockets, like the one that took the James Webb Space Telescope into space, to stream the launches back to Earth. My personal project on Robot Framework was a feasibility study to determine whether the automation tool could effectively reduce the time spent on testing of products. For each of these projects, the cycle for completing the assigned task was usually research about technologies I was unfamiliar with, code up a solution using libraries or resources, troubleshoot solutions that arise during testing, and present the material to my manager Carlos. Some might find this tedious and complex, but I found that the work gamified the experience, coming back day after day to find a clever way to beat a new challenging level with no repercussions and unlimited lives. It was so fulfilling to learn and deliver on each task I was assigned, reaffirming my decision to major in Computer Science and exciting me for future CSCE courses at the University of Arkansas. I hope to take back everything I learned and the work experience I gained to be an even more well-rounded candidate for an internship position in the States next summer, keeping the momentum moving forward.

            Now, I didn’t travel across the Atlantic to only work a 9-5. We had three-day weekends every weekend, so we had plenty of time to explore across the island and the nearby UK. The “Summer 2” cohort that I was a part of was amazing, and I wouldn’t give anything for the experiences and friendships I made with that group. Every weekend for us was another opportunity to discover the often-untold story of Ireland from Dublin to Galway to Cork to Belfast. Each city has an extraordinarily rich history, and the surrounding environment is so dramatic that it often seems unreal, not to mention the friendly sarcasm of the Irish that is made up of many diverse backgrounds. There was never a sense of disappointment, every moment topped the last, and I wouldn’t hesitate to blast back to Ireland if I were given the opportunity.