Cheering on team Barca in a home futbol game in the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona!

Author: Katherine Skiles | Major: Biological Engineering | Semester: Fall 2023

Hi everyone! My name is Katie Skiles, and I am a Biological Engineering December 2023 graduate! Before I traded the College of Engineering for the real world, I worked in Barcelona, Spain as an international intern for a marine life and ocean conservation consultancy company called Oceanogami during the Fall 2023 semester. My internship was primarily a remote experience with two in-person client events that I helped facilitate alongside my coworkers. The company I worked for serves as a bridge linking scientific research with corporate social responsibility and citizen involvement. All three sectors can make valuable contributions to the preservation and conservation of our ocean, and Oceanogami wants to equip each interest group with the proper tools to be successful in their sustainability pursuits. They wanted to find a sustainable balance between people, planet, and profit, a vision that drew me to this organization because I have a passion for sustainability. While interning at Oceanogami, I had several responsibilities including writing blogs, organizing databases, helping with the website design, translating documents, and assisting with client events. Throughout my internship experience, I grew professionally and personally in more ways than I anticipated, and I feel better prepared to be successful in my future career.

To spread awareness about important marine life topics such as ocean policies, the blue economy, and conservation advancements, Oceanogami started three blog series to relay critical information to the public while also increasing indirect foot traffic to their website to promote their consultancy services. In line with my primary task, I wrote several blogs and LinkedIn posts about topics such as corporations’ marine plastic footprint, the future of deep-sea mining, the High Seas treaty, and the 30×30 ocean campaign. All these topics revolve around the sustainable blue economy, a ground (or ocean)-breaking concept that the United Nations, the European Union, and several countries have placed great emphasis on researching, developing, and expanding. The sustainable blue economy relies on the same fundamental sustainability principles as terrestrial circular economies, but it trades deforestation and atmospheric carbon emissions issues for overfishing and blue carbon content. Biological engineering introduced me to a broad range of sustainability sectors, but the blue economy was entirely new, and I had to learn on the job.

While there were certainly setbacks, mistakes, and missed trains throughout my internship, I choose not to view any of these experiences as failures. By giving myself grace and empathy, even when it felt like I kept making countless cultural mistakes, I was able to keep going where a younger version of myself might have given up. One of the most important lessons I learned was how to be kind to myself. Moving to a new city in a new country that has two foreign languages and a different culture without anyone from my support group back home was extremely hard at times. However, it was also the most rewarding thing I have ever done, and I would not change anything. I needed to go the wrong way on the metro…several times. I needed to hear blunt feedback from my mentor because Spanish people do not sugarcoat anything. I needed to experience the frustration of having two language barriers: Catalan and Spanish. I needed to learn that knowing Spanish did not mean you knew Catalan. I needed to learn how to rely on myself and not freeze when plans were disrupted or completely ruined. My new mantra for life in the States is “if I could do it in Europe with a language barrier and no car, I can do it in America.” Regardless, the problem-solving skills I developed throughout the sometimes-uncomfortable situations will be invaluable in the future.

Overall, I believe I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience that will forever be in the back of my mind. I made too many memories in such a short time to keep them all in my short-term memory, so each time I retell a story, I get shocked again by how much I managed to do, see, and accomplish in only 12 weeks. The nine other interns who lived in Barcelona with me, six of whom lived in the same apartment, contributed significantly to my amazing experience because we planned trips nearly every weekend. These adventures typically started with one person on the couch in our tiny living room researching cheap flights and then asking the group who wanted to join. We found a support group within each other which helped lessen my homesickness and culture shock tremendously. As obvious as it sounds, I discovered there was a whole other world, filled with rich, vibrant cultures and fascinating history, out there to explore. I believe the colloquial term that best applies to my newfound desire to explore absolutely everything is the “travel-bug,” and I have caught it.

Before going abroad, my game plan was to climb the corporate ladder of my engineering job. I was focused on passing my Fundamentals of Engineering exam and then studying for the Professional Engineering exam and then earning my five years of experience so I could get my PE license and so on and so forth. These career milestones remain in my short-term future, but going abroad changed my long-term goals. I truly fell in love with the “work to live” rather than “live to work” mentality that Spain and other EU countries promote and encourage. Traveling between countries is almost easier than traveling between states in America due to the abundant, cheap, and accessible public transportation options. I promised myself that whenever I switch jobs or companies, I will take a break to go backpacking through Europe for a month or two again. The people, places, and experiences were unparalleled, and I look forward to making more memories abroad in the future. In the meantime, I will be starting my post-graduate career as a hydrology and hydraulics design engineer for Quiddity Engineering in Plano, Texas in January 2024! I interned for Quiddity during the summers of 2022 and 2023, and I look forward to reconnecting with my coworkers and taking on projects where I get to use modeling software to design innovative drainage solutions.