One of the virtues of the D-Plan, off-terms offer Dartmouth students 10 weeks of unbridled freedom to explore. That liberty, though, can double as a source of frustration. How exactly should you spend two-and-a-half months off campus during the school year? While many students choose to find employment domestically or relax at home, others take a more unique approach: working an internship abroad.
Reasons for turning expat range wildly. Benna McDermott ’26, who is majoring in geography modified with environmental studies, is currently interning in London with the Energy Saving Trust — a company that helps customers improve their energy efficiency, according to McDermott. Especially in the energy sector, McDermott said a global perspective is “very important.”
“Learning from a U[nited] K[ingdom] context where the policy framework is completely different than it is in the U.S. … is a really good perspective that I can bring back,” she said.
Similarly, Madeleine Shaw ’25 chose to spend her most recent summer off-term in Kosovo to gain experience working in the “nonprofit or non-governmental organization sphere,” according to Shaw. Shaw’s interests in international policy led her to work for the Jahjaga Foundation, founded by and named after Atifete Jahjaga — a former president of Kosovo and a visiting women’s, gender and sexuality studies professor at Dartmouth last winter.
“I took a class [with former president Jahjaga] during the winter,” Shaw said. “I got the internship just by talking to her in office hours.”
While McDermott and Shaw chose to work abroad for a heightened global perspective, Malik Terrab ’25, who is half-Moroccan, appreciates how working in Morocco allowed him to deepen his connection with his heritage.
Terrab’s case is especially interesting — not only did he work abroad, he went twice. Terrab decided to find a job in Morocco after spending his freshman summer on the Middle Eastern Studies Department’s Arabic LSA+, an intermediate language study abroad program, in Rabat in the summer of 2022. Terrab came back to Morocco the following winter to work at Nabil Ayouch’s production house, Ali n’ Productions, in Casablanca. Then, in the spring of 2024, he returned to the country — this time in journalism, at Morocco World News in Rabat.
“Study[ing] abroad was a pretty profound experience for me because it was … a moment of heritage reconnection, and I think that’s what motivated me to seek out internships and just any opportunity to go back,” Terrab said.
Then there are the students who want to do more than work. Kelly Zreloff ’26, for instance, is currently studying and working abroad in Vienna as part of IES Abroad, a program where she takes classes and works 10 to 12 hours a week at INiTS, an incubator that supports start-ups in research, technology and innovation. Zreloff found that Dartmouth lacked programs that “fully aligned” with her interests. The IES Abroad program, though, more closely fit her goals, she explained.
“I really wanted to be in a Germanic-speaking country, but still be able to study economics,” Zreloff said.
While working abroad can provide students with opportunities they wouldn’t receive domestically, finding the money to do so can be challenging, especially for those working unpaid internships, according to McDermott and Terrab. However, Dartmouth has resources to support international work and internship opportunities, such as the Dickey Center for International Understanding and the Irving Institute for Energy and Society, which offer students employment-based grants. For example, McDermott received funding from Irving because of her internship’s relation to “energy, energy policy [and] sustainability.”
“I had to write about why my internship aligns with the mission of Irving, which it very much does,” McDermott said. “Then, I got … the organization that I’m working for to outline what I’d be doing for them.”
Terrab received funding from the Dickey Center, which has specific grants for international internships and is “a great resource,” he added.
“You just [have to] do an application, [and] there might be a round of interviews … not too difficult,” Terrab said.
Working in an international setting also means adjusting to new cultural norms. Since her internship is conducted in a mixture of English and German, Zreloff has found herself “more aware” of her behavior in the office.
“As an American who is definitely still working on my German … sometimes there’s some miscommunication or … [I’m] communicating something in some way that I [think is] clear, but it end[s] up not being for my audience,” she said.
For Shaw, finding a community of friends outside of the office proved challenging, which led her to participate in extracurricular activities.
“I started boxing, and that was a really cool way to make friends that weren’t necessarily from [work]” she said. “I [also] got to meet some other locals like my landlady … that was a really cool opportunity to see a window into their lives and how they see the world.”
For those interested in working abroad, Zreloff advised students to lean into support systems — and to be aware of how they are expressing themselves in a different cultural context.
“If you can find some type of community that you feel comfortable in from the beginning, it’s definitely a huge way to build your confidence, or at least … get your footing,” she said.
Despite these obstacles, students reported positively using their time outside of work and extracurriculars to explore their cities. Zreloff particularly enjoys walking around Vienna when she has a moment to spare.
“Vienna is one of the most incredible cities that I’ve ever been to,” Zreloff said. “There’s so much history, culture and beautiful architecture, and so dedicating time to just exploring the city itself … has definitely been a big priority of mine.”
So far, McDermott has been able to explore London with some of her friends from Dartmouth who are “living in other parts of the city” while they participate in College-sponsored study abroad programs.
“It’s a really … fun balance of having this internship … but also having Dartmouth people in the same city that I can go meet up with a couple of times a week,” she said.
Overall, despite the constraints that students may face while working abroad, Terrab noted that he would recommend interning out of the country.
“Beyond career and professional aspirations, I think it’s important to see what [is] beyond America,” he said. “Seeing … other countries and … that there is more out there is profound for personal development.”
Similarly, Shaw encouraged students to step out of their comfort zones.
“I think it’s really important that people … interested in international affairs or global health … get exposure to a non-domestic setting,” she said. “I think you can learn so much about the world and also learn about America from being abroad.”
