2016_12_15_CIE_erdozain

The deadline is now open for apply for a new scholarship for international internships of the Government of Navarra status aimed at graduates under 30 years of age who are unemployed and who wish to carry out internships in other countries.

Promoted by the regional government, all graduates who have a relationship with Navarre, either because they were born there or because they are registered in this community, can apply until February 17 .

The program, which this year has an endowment of 150,000 €, was the same one that allowed Sandra Erdozáin (Biology 13) to carry out a six-month stay in a laboratory in Nebraska (USA) in 2015. In her case, the financial aid was endowed with €4,000. "I remember the experience as enriching, both professionally and staff. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln I collaborated on a project they were developing with a plant species that could be a good candidate to produce biofuels from it".

During his six-month stay, he recalls, he worked both at laboratory and in the greenhouses, participating in all phases of the experiment. He even had the good fortune to participate in congresses where he presented the results he was obtaining. "It was clear to me that I wanted to go to an English-speaking country, since one of the objectives was to improve my English. I looked for options in both the U.S. and Canada and finally I interviewed with the person who would later become my boss in Nebraska."

Getting out of the comfort zone

From the perspective of the time that has passed, Sandra stresses that the experience in another country "was a great opportunity to continue learning, to get to know new cultures and improve my English. But also to get to know myself, get out of my comfort zone and expose myself to something totally new away from home." Her committee, for someone who is thinking about apply for the scholarship PIN, is to look for a good destination: "There are many research centers and companies that are unaware of this subject support. If you make yourself known in the right way, you can get a good internship that will be very useful," he says.

In the end, he adds, an international experience "is a boost to your curriculum, it shows that you are capable of many things. To work in another language, to adapt to new situations and to face them - on many occasions, you will be the only one scholarship recipient on your department-, and, above all, it enriches you professionally and personally, and that is also evident in an interview at work", he emphasizes.

Sandra is now working at department of research and development of Eggnovo, a company from Navarra, business , which is dedicated to obtaining raw materials for food supplements through the recycling of eggshells.