My name is Margarett G. Reyes, and I am from the Philippines. I am currently a senior student at Ateneo de Manila University majoring in AB Political Science. My first month in Seoul has been nothing short of amazing. Being able to intern in ACOPIA, while at the same time, travel and explore the beautiful surroundings of South Korea, has made my trip here memorable and worthwhile. 

During my internship, I was able to experience and get to know other cultures from the different people I get to intern with and meet around Seoul and within the ACOPIA Café. There is a variety of people who also intern for ACOPIA; they come from France, Germany, USA, China, and others. Since ACOPIA also provides cultural and educational trips for their interns throughout their stay, I was able to explore deeper into South Korea and its history and culture. ACOPIA brought us to visit cultural places such as the Korea Dimilitarization Zone, and the Korea Ginseng Museum. We also attended a talk led by Ms. Gaëlle Larvor, the assistant editor at Korea boardgames, who gave an engaging talk about her life and work in South Korea. In addition to that, we were also allowed to attend a Korean Language class or a Kpop dance class once a week. 

In relation to my work, on the first few weeks of my internship in ACOPIA, my fellow Filipino interns and I decided to delegate different tasks among each other to make the work more efficient. Nicole and I were in charge of the Instagram account, and so, in the following weeks of my internship, I mainly focused on bringing the ACOPIA Café Instagram account to life by taking photos with my camera, editing the photos, and working with Nicole to write creative captions. By updating and posting better content on the account, we had the goal to garner more viewers, followers, and hopefully, interested customers and future interns. I also started creating an orientation presentation for future interns in order to prepare and inform them of the tasks they are expected to do, and to provide them with all the information they need on ACOPIA, its accounts, passwords, and websites. Other than that, we also visited different universities to distribute flyers with the aim to further promote ACOPIA and invite visitors and customers to the café.

Additionally, we have also been tasked to translate two of ACOPIA’s websites, ACOPIA Friends and ACOPIA Star, from Japanese to English, and it is currently up and running. However, we are still continuing to add information and making revisions as time goes. We aim for this website to be able to reach more people from all over the globe, since it’s been translated into English, and to be more informative for foreigners and locals alike. 

Overall, my stay in Seoul, South Korea, and in ACOPIA has been an enjoyable experience, and I can’t wait to bring all the memories and stories back home with me. I can definitely say that interning in ACOPIA has allowed me to connect with different people from all over the world, and to experience not just the Korean culture, but also that of other countries’.