Olivia Ellis

Hi! My name is Olivia Ellis, and I am a 2021-2022 Gilman Alumni Ambassador from Charlotte, North Carolina. I graduated cum laude from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in International & Global Studies. As a Gilman Scholar, I had the wonderful opportunity to virtually intern abroad in Hanoi, Vietnam in the spring of 2021.

Are you someone who is worried about your health and safety, while studying abroad? Are the concerns of the pandemic making you second guess your studying abroad plans and dreams?

Well, I’m here to tell you that your worries and concerns are valid and understandable. You may feel that you are the only one having these thoughts, but you are not alone. I’m also here to tell you that your study abroad dreams have not been defeated!

Have you ever heard of the quote “when one door closes, another one opens?” Well, that is what a virtual exchange program was like for me. When the pandemic first started, I was quite hopeful that I would be able to continue my initial study abroad program in Seoul, South Korea. I dreaded the day that the email that stated “your study abroad program has been canceled” would come upon my computer screen. That day had come, and I was full of emotions and for a moment I didn’t know what I should do. Although I was very discouraged, I continued to be optimistic and decided to try something new, and I searched for virtual options. With the help of my university study abroad advisor and my Gilman advisor. I was led to multiple remote options to take on, as an exchange program. I decided to apply to ISA Internships and was accepted to intern as a virtual English as a Second Language (EFL) teacher in Hanoi, Vietnam at the Will to Live Center. This new experience or new open door was filled with many engaging and exciting group meetings, late night conversations, cultural learning, and meaningful connections. I met wonderful people, I had my first experience in teaching, and I learned about Vietnamese culture from my friends and faculty.  I also became more involved in social issues surrounding disabilities in Vietnam. The Will to Live Center is a non-profit organization that provides technology and English language skills to students, who are living with physical disabilities. My students who always logged onto zoom with smiling faces, positive energy, and enthusiasm for learning, were the reason behind my smile every day. I wanted to make sure that they knew that not only am I teaching English to you, but I am also here to learn from you. Whether it was about Vietnamese culture, learning Vietnamese or talking about the social issues that they face in their community, I reciprocated the same positive energy and enthusiasm to learn from them as well. Having this internship opened so many opportunities for me to learn, to grow, and to explore different interests. Maybe you’re reading this and you’re thinking “wow that’s great that she had a good experience, but that might not be the same for me.” Which is true, but your goals shouldn’t be to make your experiences the same as mine, but to make your experiences, your own.

Top photo: A photo of my students after our first day of class.
Bottom photo: A drawing of me from one of my students.

Here are some aspects about virtual internships that are in my opinion beneficial to how I made the most of my virtual exchange program.

• Saving Money

What I loved about having a virtual internship is that you can save some money. Although, I couldn’t experience the thrill of traveling around my host country. I was able to use my extra savings from my initial program, to enjoy a small, safe, vacation with my friends, to buy books about Korean culture and Vietnamese Culture, and I would visit my favorite Vietnamese restaurant and enjoy warm, flavorful bowls of Pho, which became a weekly ritual for me. I made the most out of my experiences from having extra money. It was very helpful for me to enjoy my senior year of college and my internship, and I also gained new experiences with friends and had my own solo adventures.

A photo from my trip to the Museum of Art, in Raleigh, NC.

• Making Deeper Connections

Another aspect of participating in a virtual internship is that I believe it enabled me to make deeper connections with my fellow-interns, my supervisors from my host company, and members from ABROADER. Before my program officially began, I thought about how could I make connections with the people that I would meet on this virtual journey? However, making friends was surprisingly easier for me during this internship. Maybe it is because we knew we had to interact with each other, since we were all online and did not want to have that “awkward zoom” feeling for 4 months, or maybe it’s because our advisors from ABROADER made our zoom meetings a welcoming and comfortable space for us to be vulnerable. It’s possibly because of both things, but we did feel comfortable to express ourselves to each other. We made a group chat where we would share photos of food, celebrate birthdays and holidays together, talk about our cultures, and share our daily lives. We created a virtual community for ourselves, and it made our time together memorable.

• Finding An Environment That Works for You

From my experience, the work culture in Vietnam is different from the common U.S. work culture that we have grown familiar with. Vietnamese work culture is more collective, there is a more team driven feeling and they work at a calmer pace, rather than the U.S work culture which is more individualistic and fast paced. I learned that it is common to have a connection with your supervisors, so it was very new to me to share my Facebook with my supervisor, or to call her or text, rather than strictly using email. I enjoyed that having access to communicate with each other through these resources helped us understand and share about our lives, which in result led us to support one another in the best way we could through remote communication. Experiencing this type of work culture, helped me understand what type of work environment that I feel I could prosper in. Having this experience has led me to pursue working in Vietnam. I learned about what I liked and what I did not like in accordance to a place that I want to reside in for work, which is a very important aspect to consider.

Beautiful yellow trees during Tét Holiday.

• Focusing On the Present That Is Creating My Future

Through the connections that I made during my internship, I’ve been guided and supported in my journey of becoming an EFL teacher. I’ve realized that it is common to feel lost when you begin a new task. When I finished my internship, I had a determined mind to pursue a TEFL licensure, however there were so many options that I could choose but having so many options made me feel lost and overwhelmed all at once. Thankfully, my ISA Internship advisors were willing to help direct me to a great TEFL licensure program, in which I will finish receiving in the next month. I have also received additional teaching opportunities through my friends from ABROADER.  Currently I am teaching remotely for a non-profit library called Duonglieu Library. I’m thankful for this teaching opportunity because it is allowing me to grow as a teacher, and I can do what I love most, which is meeting new people and helping them achieve their goals. All the opportunities that I have had since I began my internship has helped me gain more experience in my career field. I am always grateful for those who have supported me and helped me through my journey, towards my career.

I do believe that my virtual exchange program has led me into my future and at times I do feel that the way my study abroad situation unfolded, was meant to happen for me. Although I did not have an in-person experience, I feel that the feelings, the connections, and the growth that I have had during and after my internship, will always be a memorable and transformative time in my life. I feel even more ecstatic and ready for the day that I can travel and to do what I love most. I know that when that day comes that I will be confident and prepared to take on the new challenges and experiences that I will face, and it is all because of my decision to try something new.

Top photo: A regular class day for my students and I
Middle photo: Beautiful decorations during Tét Holiday
Bottom photo: Last day of class! Everyone attended class from home due to Covid cases rising in Hanoi

 

So, I encourage you to try something new today, tomorrow, or even next week. If you have been pondering about participating in a virtual program, I believe you should do it. Make a new experience for yourself, learn about the people you interact with, and take the first step to achieve your dreams.

Hi! My name is Olivia Ellis, and I am a 2021-2022 Gilman Alumni Ambassador from Charlotte, North Carolina. I graduated cum laude from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with a degree in International & Global Studies. As a Gilman Scholar, I had the wonderful opportunity to virtually intern abroad in Hanoi, Vietnam in the spring of 2021.

Taking pictures is always the best while taking a small break from lesson planning!

When I prepared to go abroad for my initial abroad program in Seoul, South Korea, I constantly wondered how I would make friends. I was about to step into a completely different society, my identity as an African American female, and as a foreigner, would be greatly perceived. I knew that I would stand out amongst the Korean students in my classes, dorm room, and in public. Although I did not know what to expect, I was determined to make my abroad experience joyful and try to meet new friends by being my most authentic self.

Once the pandemic began, my plans, my hopes and the world shifted. I was preparing for this exciting and anticipated change in my life, to be blown away by the effects of the pandemic.

Although my plans were changing, I continued to search for study abroad opportunities, which were only virtual options at the time. I had many factors to continue to pursue finding a new opportunity to take on. However, I wanted to meet native people and learn about them, their stories, and their culture. I wanted to experience something new. So, I told myself “Let’s do this.”

I felt very fortunate to be able to find a virtual internship amid the new adjustments from the pandemic. I was open to interning in any country, I was very flexible and excited to be assigned to Vietnam. Although I was ecstatic about this wonderful opportunity, I found myself feeling those same thoughts as before, about how to make friends. I felt pressured to figure out how I can present myself to others through a computer screen? Will meeting on zoom make it easier to get to know my peers, to communicate, to relate? How will I have the same experience with Vietnamese culture, as my peers have had in their in-person program? These questions lingered in my mind, constantly growing, and becoming stronger as I counted down the days until my orientation.

Once that day came upon me, simultaneously, my worries were washed away.

Julie and I hanging out on Zoom!

On that day, I met my beautiful friend Julie. Julie was my advisor from Abroader, a secondary internship company that I collaborated with throughout my program. When you first meet Julie, you feel this warm and positive vibe. She is someone who will brighten your day, from her charismatic and joyful personality and her lovely smile. In moments that I felt unsure and nervous about trying new activities and teaching my first class, Julie was always by my side. Whether it was an email, a text message, a Zoom call, or her attending my classes, she was always someone I knew I could confide in. Despite her busy schedules, Julie always shows up and stands out. I admire her perseverance and she is someone who truly inspires me to live my life happily and to work hard for my dreams.

Our friendship is quite unique. The more we talked the more we realized how similar our lives were. We have similar career fields in English Language teaching, we love music, exercising, and eating delicious food. Most of all we love to talk!  We communicate by calling one another on Zoom and WhatsApp, we mostly talk about the world and traveling, as well as our daily lives. We are always excited to share about new TV shows and movies that we watch and the music that we listen to. Julie is very talented, and she can sing and play the ukulele. She sent me videos of her singing and playing “Let It Be” by The Beatles, during my internship and now she will send me her music on Soundcloud. Although I am not the best singer, I’ve promised to sing a Vietnamese song for her one day, because of our exercise challenge.

We would share photos of the sky from our locations. (Photos from outside of Julie’s work office, It seems like the sun shines brighter in Vietnam!)

There were so many times that I learned about Vietnamese culture during my internship. Not only did ABROADER supply us with cultural exchange meetings, but Julie would share about Vietnamese culture with me outside of our meetings. Julie shared many photos and videos with me as she and her family prepared for the Tết Holiday (Lunar New Year Festival) this year. I loved receiving notifications full of beautiful pictures of red and yellow flowers, fabulous decorations, and mouthwatering food. One aspect that I learned about Vietnamese people is that they value their time, especially family time. Tết Holiday is about your family and going back to her hometown was a common conversation that we would have. Julie would send me videos of her traveling back home for the holiday, including an adorable video of her grandmother cooking food for her and her family once she arrived home. Not only did we talk about Vietnamese culture, but I also shared about my African American culture as well. We would discuss social justice issues for the Black community in and outside of the U.S. I would teach her about hair culture; the importance of Black hair, its significance to the Black community and how we maintain our hair in protective styles such as braids, wigs, and wearing beautifully designed headwraps. As well as the importance of loving ourselves by embodying our natural hair and our skin color. We would talk about colorism within both of our communities and how it affected us as women in our societies. I always talked about my students at the Will to Live Center (WLC), a non-profit that provides students with physical disabilities, technology, and English skills. I wanted to learn more about their experiences in Vietnamese society and Julie would also share information about people living with disabilities in Vietnam. Through my interactions with my students, the WLC and Julie, I was inspired to write my dissertation about the Cultural Understandings of Disabilities in Vietnam. I’m sure you can guess that Julie was one of my biggest supporters during that time. Having open discussions with each other is what I believe made our friendship bloom. We both expressed our willingness and curiosity to learn about each other and our cultures.

Decorations that were placed in the city of Hanoi.

Currently we keep in touch consistently. We are always sharing about the new opportunities that we are taking on, sharing our sad days and happy days, and uplifting one another. I always reminisce about my gratitude for my internship opportunity and being able to meet wonderful people. I did not expect to have a friend like Julie in my life, and to be connected in such a unique way. Through all the growth and lessons that I learned during my internship, I’m grateful that I learned how to be a great friend to someone over a thousand miles away, and to experience having a great friend from lovely Vietnam.

Chị Cảm ơn nhé! Mong sớm gặp chi!  (Julie, Thank you! I hope to see you soon!)