Name: Daniella Jacob
Class Year: 2026
Major: Religion, Anthropology
Internship Organization: Watgen SpA
Internship Title: Acquisitions Intern
Location: Santiago, Chile
What’s happening at your internship? We would love to hear what kind of work you are doing!
Goodbye dinner including my friends, host mom, family friends, and a Chilean traditional dish (completos)
As my internship, I have been working at WatGen Solar Energy. Watgen is part of a government initiative called StartUp Chile. StartUp Chile is an organization that gave funding to a handful of Chilean startups that are traillazing the technology sphere. WatGen was one of the special startups that were selected. My responsibilities included reaching out to clients and aquiring new investors. This was a new muscle that this internship helped me develop, since I had never done anything in the technology industry before. To inform potential clients of what they were buying into, I had to fully understand the industry and the economic state of Chile in comparison to other countries. Also, as part of my job, I got to work with local tribal leaders and municipalities to help them understand how our services could be of use to them as well. My favorite part of the internship overall was the work environment. We worked in a building that was in the heart of Santiago. All of the startups sponsored by StartUp Chile worked on one floor. It was incredible to literally work at the same table as the most intelligent, creative, generative minds in the country. Young professionals around me would be working hard for eight hours, refilling their yerba mate cups (a cultural caffeine drink) over and over. I learned a lot from their work ethic and developed close relationships with two of my coworkers just from working alongside each other.
Why did you apply for this internship?
Stargazing trip in the desert with a full view of the Milky Way
When I applied to IES Abroad Santiago, I had felt that my resume was pretty cushioned. I had interned the past two summers and had worked all throughout my three years of college as well. One huge gap I was noticing in my resume is that I lacked any experience abroad. I had witnessed many friends coming back from their time abroad mentioning how it was truly “life-changing.” I had heard that word over and over. So, I decided my last summer in college that I really wanted to go abroad and experience that perspective-shift that others had. There were other locations available for IES but I wanted to prioritize going to a place that was vastly different from the life I was used to. Europe and the global West has cultural differences but share more similarities to the U.S. than differences, arguably. I also wanted to challenge myself to be immersed in a different language, with no option to cop-out and use English. That certainly made my experience more difficult but I left the city having my taxi driver shocked that I knew so much Spanish as an American.
What has been the biggest challenge you have faced at your internship?
One challenge I had with my internship in Santiago is that I felt like I was not very useful. WatGen was not actually the internship I had agreed upon when I first came to Santiago. I worked at a nonprofit my first two weeks in Santiago and was working on children’s rights and marketing. I grew dissatisfied in the internship because it resembled work I had done years ago. I felt like it was not helping me make professional progress and wouldn’t offer me new skills. So, I met with the IES staff and discussed new options. That is when I interviewed for WatGen and got chosen as an intern. It was difficult to advocate for myself in this case, knowing that it was late in the recruiting cycle and that my options were limited. It was also difficult to communicate clearly why I was so adamant on getting a switch, especially because the workplace culture in Santiago is not as cut-throat and intense as I was used to in the States. But, once I became insistent on what I knew was right for my professional progress, I was given an opportunity to work in a place that taught me new skills and developed my resume in a field that is increasingly relevant.
Was this internship what you expected it to be?
My internship took a learning curve to be fully comfortable. The workplace culture in Santiago, as I mentioned before, feels radically different than what I am used to (especially if you are familiar with corporate America). For example, many of the students’ bosses in the program would sometimes not come in office although we were expecting them. Also, bosses may assign tasks with low-context behind the assignment. This was especially a problem I faced: me and my co-worker would be given complex assignments but not quite know the why, how, or who behind our tasks. This taught me to be very direct and assertive in communicating. Instead of wallowing in confusion, I learned to immediately contact my boss with my questions in curiosities so I don’t waste the company’s time or stress myself out. This internship is really what I made of it! Advocating for myself more than usual definitely was a learning curve but it taught me unexpected communication skills that were honestly lacking before this internship. I am grateful for that.