Skill 1:
Communicate despite language & cultural barriers
There have been many instances where I have been faced with a language barrier when talking to people during my internship. One example of this is when I was managing the info point and someone came up to me to ask about snorkeling but they didn't speak English or Italian. We communicated through charades and hand movements so we were both able to understand each other. In the end, they were able to find out the price to rent snorkels but opted not to rent them as they were a little more expensive than they would have liked.
Skill 2:
Verbally communicate with people inside and outside the organization
Communicating with people inside and outside the organization is something that occurs daily at the Bay. When we get to the Bay we have a supervisor who is a part of the organization with whom we have to communicate our daily schedules and tasks with. We also have to run an info point where we are communicating with people outside the organization and informing them about the Bay, the organization (FAI), and the marine protected area. Since it is important to inform the people about the area, we communicate with people inside and outside the organization every day.
Skill 3:
Flexibility / Adaptability
Future Me:
Throughout this internship, I have had to be flexible with my schedule because there have been days when I had to switch my shifts around to make sure that someone was always at the Bay, even though I wasn't supposed to be at the Bay that day. This flexibility allowed me to be more adaptable in not only my schedule but also in my personal life. This skill taught me that sometimes things don't go according to the schedule and sometimes you just have to go with the flow to get things accomplished.
In the future I see myself working in some type of conservation role. I hope to be working with Coral Reef conservation in either Australia or the U.S. I hope that whatever job I have I will be surrounded by nature doing something that I love and preferably traveling while doing it!