From 13/02/2017-09/06/2017 we participated in the Erasmus Programme, hosting a student from Belgium for a work placement. She has written a blog post about her experiences which we have reproduced below.

Working at NLC

I am Victoria Schiettecatte a third year marketing student at the Odisee school in Belgium (Brussels). I did an internship for four months at the North Leadership Centre (NLC). Since my first year I knew I wanted to go on Erasmus, and I’m not disappointed at all. At the end of June 2016 the school announced I would go to Newcastle upon Tyne. I was ready to go anywhere and I was so happy with my destination. I really wanted to improve my English and to gain some experience in the marketing world. In January I got the email saying I would do my internship at the NLC. I knew this would be a good environment to improve my English.

I arrived on Saturday the 11th of February and loved this city immediately. My accommodation was near to the quayside, an amazing place. On Monday the 13th February I started my internship at the NLC. It was difficult for me to understand everything in English and also how NLC worked. It was important for me to understand what the NLC does. After some weeks working on marketing and reading a lot about NLC I understood what they do and my English had also improved. It got easier to work on my projects.

I worked on many different things and learned so much. When I arrived, NLC had to do a bid for their NETSP (North East Teaching School Partnership) programmes. There were some marketing bids I worked on, they were part of the marketing plan and strategy for NETSP. After the bid was sent it was time to apply the marketing strategy. The website and the brochure needed an update. So I learned to work with different programmes such as Adobe Indesign, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Dreamweaver.

With the help of Eleanor and all my colleagues we were able to create a new brochure and website for NETSP. This project gave me an insight of what I wanted to do after this year. I want to do digital marketing studies in Belgium. I also did some data analysis for different projects. I really like to work with figures and worked on some analyses. As I learned to work with Adobe programmes I also worked on the NLC website and wrote a social media plan and strategy. This project was my last project at NLC and I really enjoyed it. I believe I worked in an office were hard work and humour is the key to success. Colleagues were very friendly and received me well. I am so thankful for my internship at NLC.

There were 5 other students from my school doing an Erasmus exchange in Newcastle so we decided to visit each other’s workplaces. It was interesting to see what kind of work others had done during those four months.

Exploring the UK

During my exchange I had the opportunity to discover some places. I went to London for a long weekend. I had already visited London but now I enjoyed some walking and museums, not like the busy school trip I had done before.

In Newcastle I visited the BALTIC and most of the things around the quayside, Newcastle castle, Angel of the North, The Biscuit Factory, Tynemouth, and many, many more. You can’t be bored here!

We also had the opportunity to go to a farm close to Berwick upon Tweed and learned about the lambing period and helped a bit. An unforgettable experience.

My mom came for a weekend and rented a car so we enjoyed a road trip in Scotland. First we went to Durham where I wanted to visit the cathedral. Unfortunately the cathedral was closed as they were filming the new Avengers movie. After our stop in Durham, we went to the Angel of the North on our way up to Scotland and we also went to Alnwick castle. It is an amazing castle which also has a garden to visit, really nice. As we had to be in Aberdeen in the evening we had to leave quickly and had a long drive passing by Edinburgh. The view from the bridge we crossed was amazing.

The next day we visited Balmoral as my mom loves everything about royal families. We also went to the sea, there were cliffs with a lot of birds. It was so beautiful. For the end of our trip we decided to go to Glasgow on our way back to Newcastle and also stopped by the Irish Sea. I knew we would be near Hadrian’s Wall and I really wanted to see Sycamore Gap. After searching for it we were able to find it and see it from the road with an amazing sunset and we went back to Newcastle.

Newcastle upon Tyne is an amazing place and people are very nice. It is a very young and dynamic city and would recommend anyone to study or do an internship here.