To suddenly change environment from the very dark and cold Swedish winter to the warm and exotic life in Miami was a great experience for me. I think Miami is so much more than just an American big city and I believe this was one of my biggest surprises when I first arrived. Miami is actually one of the bigger Latin cities in the world and it is sometimes called the capital of the Caribbean. Miami is also the home of a big European population and I would guess Miami is one of the more diverse cities in the world with its very noticeable international atmosphere.

During my 12 months’ internship as Intranet Analyst Intern at the head quarters of Royal Caribbean Cruises in Miami, I gained an incredible amount of knowledge about how American business culture works and how it is to work for a huge company in an international environment. I was lucky to get the opportunity to experience many different situations, both in work and in life but also how they affect each other. Meeting, talking and working with Filipinos, Croatians, Russians, Greeks, Brits, South Americans, Cubans and Americans, to name a few, was very rewarding and I found it very interesting how much of a difference there is in culture between these countries. I was however more surprised by the cultural differences between Scandinavians and I think it was even more interesting to work with Norwegian, Finnish and Danish people.

I participated in different projects through-out my internship but was mostly involved in two major areas, the department’s administration and the strategic and tactical management of my department. My work in the administration area consisted mostly of making sure information was available to both the office workers of Royal Caribbean and our ships. As in any other big organization, one need not only to be able to find information somewhere but it also needs to be easily available in an intuitive manner and structure which many times can prove to be a challenge to create, regardless of your background. The strategic and tactical management work consisted in the beginning mostly of gathering data and doing minor analyzing. At the end of my internship I did, however, participate in a project carried out mainly on board our ships where we questioned the management processes and built a new structure to further enhance the way the company works with continuous improvement. This was a big challenge, especially since there were a lot of differences between the office and on board the ships. Although the project required a lot of work, I also got a little time in between to explore and discover many of the Caribbean islands as well as try out how it is to work as a traveling employee. My background as a student at the department of Industrial Engineering and Management at Chalmers as well as my background as being self-employed as a consultant helped a lot in all of the different situations I faced during this project.

It is a huge cliché but in the world of today where everyone can look up any fact in a split second on Google, it is getting more and more valuable to know how to use that fact in a real-world business situation and in life in general. I definitely believe spending a year in the United States gave me a lot and I believe anyone would really benefit tremendously from doing the same!

Carl-Johan Blomqvist expects to receive his M.S. in Industrial Engineering and Management from Chalmers University in 2011.