"My personal experience in Plymouth" by Emilie

One of our students from Belgium, decided to write a few paragraphs about her experience in Plymouth. We were lucky enough to work with Emilie as she undertook her work placement with Almond Vocational Link in February 2014. It was a pleasure to work with this bright young lady and we wish her all the best in her future professional career.

Here is what Emilie had to say:

Emilie (far right) taking part in Language Cafe activities

My personal experience in Plymouth

 

My name is Emilie and I’m in my final year of studying to become a management assistant. I am from Libramont, a little town in the south of Belgium. To complete my studies, I decided to undertake training abroad. Other students from my school came to UK before and said they had good time. I decided to come to Plymouth with two friends, Fabienne and Virginie. We arrived here on 1st February 2014.

The beginning was rather difficult. I didn't know anything about this city, I didn't know if I would like it, if I would have fun, if my work placement would be nice... I just wanted to come back home, but after three or four days, everything was fine.

I came here for a work placement (as a student) at Almond Vocational Link Ltd. I found it a nice place to work. The people are very patient, smiling. During my work placement, I had the opportunity to improve my own skills (translation, page layout, letter writing) but also the opportunity to develop new skills I hadn't before like marketing, database, research.

Little by little, I discovered the lovely city of Plymouth. This city is a paradise for those who love shopping. The most amazing, for me, was the cosmetics. Anything you could dream, you have it. In the centre, you can find a lot of wonderful and amazing shops that don’t exist in Belgium. My favourite are Boots and Superdrug. Plymouth is also perfect for those who love going out late. In the city, you can find a lot of casino’s, night clubs, cafe’s, bars.

Everything here is very easy to find. Wherever you live around Plymouth, you have buses to go to the city centre every few minutes, even on Sundays! You just have to go to Royal Parade and then, everything is here: shops, nightclubs, restaurants... Whatever you want, you have it around Royal Parade!

My country is known to be the Chocolate’s Country but England is a chocolate’s country too! There are so many kinds of chocolate products that one month is not enough to taste all of them. Nevertheless, there are also a lot of other food products that you can’t find in Belgium and it’s just fun to taste them.

I really enjoyed my stay here. One month is a bit too short if you want to enjoy everything that Plymouth can offer you, but it was really nice to come here. People are very kind and helpful. They won’t blame you if you don’t understand what they say or if you don’t speak English very well. They have great qualities that a lot of people from big cities don’t have. All of this, is what makes Plymouth  amazing!

Emilie receiving her certificate from Janet