After graduating from my Master’s degree, and after many many many applications to everything I could possibly find on the internet, I managed to land a paid internship in an international organisation in Geneva for six months.
This was against the odds for a number of reasons, not least because the majority of internships in Geneva are unpaid. The irony of the fact that the UN only offers unpaid internships – all the while adopting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – is not lost on anyone, least of all those at the Fair Internship Initiative who campaign under the slogan “UNpaid is UNfair.”
Like most graduates of a political science degree, I was totally sold on the idea that Geneva was the ultimate golden egg, however, there are many things that I wish I’d known before moving to the city of peace.
Here are 12 things I wished I’d known before starting my internship:
Be vigilant when looking for accommodation
Looking for accommodation in Geneva is challenging.
As a starting point, I recommend checking out the website of the Geneva Intern Association as they often advertise rooms.
Other places to look are in the “petites annonces” section of the GHI website, or the classified section of the expat community website glocals.com. Also try a couple of Facebook groups: GENEVE à louer – bouche à oreille and Colocappart – Immo Genève / location & sous-location.
There are a lot of scammers out there so make sure to:
- Deal locally only with people you can meet in person
- Never wire funds via Western Union or other wire services
I managed to secure accommodation through the WHO intranet, which is only open to the World Health Organisation staff. Someone I knew who was working there sent me a list of adverts. I did all of this virtually and knew that it was a safe thing to organise because the landlady told me that she was happy for me to transfer the first month’s rent and security deposit once I had arrived at the apartment on my first day in Geneva.
Have your paperwork in order from the get-go
Your new employer will guide you through the visa process; it’s lengthy and will involve you getting a work permit, residency attestation, and providing proof of a guarantor and more. All foreign interns who are hired in Switzerland have to jump through these hoops so they won’t be a barrier to getting employed.
When you arrive in the city, you’ll need to report to the Office cantonal de la population et des migrations (OCPM) with your paperwork.
You’ll also need to open a bank account upon arrival if you are doing a paid internship (hopefully you are..!).
Finally, you’ll need health insurance; Swisscare offers health insurance specifically for interns.
Have some money saved up
Due to the lengthy process of opening a bank account in Geneva, I wasn’t paid until 3 months into my internship. This meant that I’d already completed half of my internship before getting my hands on those much needed Swiss Francs!
As such, it’s worth having some savings to rely on whilst you wait for the wheels of Swiss bureaucracy to turn.
Pack stuff that is expensive even in your own country, or hard to get overseas
You’ll be shocked by the price of most things in Geneva, and it stings even more when you need to buy something that’s also expensive in your own country, because it’s extortionate in Geneva. I really resented paying through the nose for simple things like sun cream when I was over there, which wasn’t even a seasonal requirement, as I needed it as much for the slopes in winter as for lake time in the summer.
Ever since I first lived abroad at the age of 19, I have taken bags and bags of Twinings tea overseas with me.
This is because the stuff they sell and label as Twinings in other European countries is not the real deal!
Don’t expect the locals to care that you’re there
With Geneva being such an international city, English is usually the lingua franca. As does happen in pockets where non-natives speak English together, rarely in the company of natives, English is purely functional. This means that people are as disinterested when they meet a native English speaker, as they are when you try to connect with them in their own language. If it doesn’t serve a purpose, i.e. if you’re shit at communicating (as I was), then the feeling is not to bother.
Understandably, in a city that sees a lot of international traffic, local people aren’t always that interested in taking a foreigner under their wing; why invest in a friendship with someone who will be off to the next international hub in a matter of months?
Prepare to change your eating habits
I became a vegetarian whilst in Geneva, not for any moral or health reason, but because meat was so expensive. Geneva is 33% more expensive than New York according to a living cost index from Numbeo.
I seem to remember eating a lot of scrambled egg as my main meal of the day. Very sad indeed.
A lot of people cross the border into France to do their food shopping, but since I didn’t have a car, eggs it was.
Attend intern events to find your people
The Geneva Interns Association is a good place to start as they put on events in the city.
I attended one of their events when I first arrived, which is where I met a group of scientists who worked at CERN. They became my ski crew and close friends during my time in Geneva. They even gave me a tour of CERN.
Pay attention to the laws regarding noise
Silence on Sunday is compulsory. It actually starts on Saturday at 11pm. Disturbing the peace can have some serious consequences; if you recycle on a Sunday (think glass bottles smashing into a bin), you risk being fined, and if you can’t pay it, you’ll spend a few days in jail.
You can’t buy alcohol in supermarkets in Geneva, and off-licences shut between 10pm and 6am to maintain public order. So don’t even try to have a lively night out. You’ll be shushed or simply picked up by the police.
Don’t assume you’ll just pick up the French language
Over the course of my time in Geneva, I gave French two very pithy stabs. By my second week in the city, I was all signed up for an 8-week French course with Migros (the supermarket also teaches French?!), which, to my surprise, would take place in a shopping mall.
If you’re looking to fall in love with a language, it won’t happen at Centre Commercial Balexert. Once a week after work, I’d take a 12-minute tram ride to Bouchet tram stop, to be assaulted by bright commercial lights against the pitch-black, freezing winter night.
It didn’t match up with any of my perceptions of learning the language of love in one of Europe’s old francophone cities, which partially contributed to my lack of progress.
I later found a more affordable course at UPCGE (Université Populaire of Geneva Canton), cheaper for various reasons, from their hiring of volunteer teachers, receiving state funding, free access to classrooms and donations. I attended classes for about a month and improved a little bit, but it was such a slow process! Checkout my How I reached C1 French in 3 months after 21 years of struggling to read more about why I failed to learn French in Geneva.
If I could go back in time, I know I would’ve learnt more French than I did, thanks to the lessons I’ve learnt about how to ace learning a foreign language, which make up most of the content of this blog. However, I find that my environment has a huge effect on me, and as such, I still think that, time travel or not, I would’ve learnt more French if I’d interned in a more culturally rich and welcoming city than Geneva. Sorry, Genève.
Make friends with someone with a car
If you’re a keen skier, this is a must! It won’t surprise you that trains won’t get you to a ski resort.
The trains are pretty good for visiting other places like Lausanne or Yvoire (a beautiful little medieval town) but for anything outside of normal train hours, like Montreux Jazz Festival, you’ll want a friend who drives.
Always make weekend plans
Most of my work colleagues lived outside of Geneva, whether this is because Geneva is dull as hell or just because you get more bang for your buck outside of the city is up to you to decide…
This is true for most professional organisations. As such, the city was always dead at weekends, especially in the winter months.
It’s for this reason that it’s worth making plans with friends (other interns who are also renting in the city!), whether to take trips out of town or sit and drink beers by the lake because you can’t afford bar prices.
Be prepared for it not to be the golden egg that you thought it would be
So many interns flock to Geneva on a monthly basis that even if you are lucky enough to land a short-term internship there, there’s no guarantee that you can stay. And their immigration policy is such that when you finish your internship, you’ve only got a short time to apply for and secure another job before they send you packing.
I applied for sooo many things the whole time I was there, mindful of this countdown, and about a week before the end of my contract, I got to the final two for a really interesting “traineeship” (another word used to justify paying you peanuts), only to miss out to the other candidate.
My advice to anyone wanting to break into the international world is to avoid the big hubs like Geneva and Brussels. Instead search for opportunities in smaller cities, as there’s generally less competition for jobs in smaller, less well-known cities.
This is something a friend of mine did; he secured an internship in a small town in Germany through eurojobs.com. From there he climbed up the company to secure a permanent contract and various promotions. In cities like Geneva and Brussels, the constant cycle of interns means that you generally have to be either brilliant or very lucky to secure something more permanent post-internship. And if you do, you have to stay in Geneva. 
If you get the opportunity to do an internship in Geneva, I highly recommend going for it, as you never know where it may lead, but it’s also true that “forewarned is forearmed.” If you’ve interned in Geneva before, I’d love to know whether any of this resonates with you; comment below!
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