Where did you go and what did you do there?

I did my internship in a small town in northern British Columbia called Smithers. It is located 800km (as the crow flies) from Vancouver. It is a working class town lost in the middle of wide open spaces and natural resources.

My host institution is a medium-sized company that provides specialized infrastructure, manpower, logistical services and technical project expertise to companies in the natural resource exploration and development sector in Canada.

My mission was to develop a new environmental plan and to improve the occupational health and safety area in order to obtain COR certification.

What did you learn during this GoLaSalle stay?

During this stay I first learned English 🙂 because my level was really low for my taste and being immersed in an exclusively English-speaking region helps a lot.

I discovered the mining environment, the exploration camps often located in remote areas with extreme conditions. I learned a great deal about health and safety and the different requirements to be respected, but I was also able to touch the environmental field and learn to question myself on how to fight against certain environmental impacts and study their solutions.

Most of all, I learned to live and manage on my own, in a culture that is not my own, to open up, meet people and get out of my comfort zone.

How will this help you in your professional life?

All of this has led me to meet incredibly interesting people from different backgrounds, all of whom have more or less inspired me for my future projects and challenges. I have further sharpened my professional orientation and know/understand what I like or not. To see how a company works in a context outside Europe and more particularly on the North American continent.

I was also lucky (or unlucky, I don't know) to arrive in a company that was in the middle of restructuring. It was sometimes hard to make my voice heard, but I was able to show my determination, my tenacity and my versatility within the team, which also earned me a potential job offer after I finished my studies.  

It was a very enriching experience, a real challenge for someone like me who has never left his family outside of the vacation context, and it made me grow personally and professionally.