Conquering Mount Everest

As the semester comes to an end I’m finally able to take a step back, take a breath, and reflect on the battlefield behind me. In 3 ½ short months I’ve accomplished more in developing myself than I have in the past couple of years. The Center of Global Studies has helped me to achieve this goal.

I’ve already spoken on press releases, newsletters, weekly events, and flyers. Now it’s time to discuss the end goal. As a sort of “final project” for the internship, each intern and graduate assistant was tasked with planning, coordinating, and managing our very own global studies event on campus. The project is meant to put into practice the accumulation of skills we’ve gained throughout the semester.

For my event I chose to screen the movie, Young and Restless in China, a documentary that follows the lives of 9 young men and women in China as they learn to live in a rapidly changing economy and society. I created a press release and flyer for the event, and even spoke with a few teachers to ask them to incentivize their students to go. The end result was magical: there wasn’t an empty seat or dry eye in the room!…Just kidding. Only 6 people showed up.

Although some people might count that as a loss, I’m personally very happy with the results. The event was a valuable learning experience and it taught me how to successfully plan for the future. I now know that planning an event a few days after Thanksgiving break and two weeks before finals isn’t the most ideal time. I also know that the event should be promoted earlier so students have time to fit it into their schedules. When it comes time to plan my next event, I’ll be ready for the challenges. Now I can say I have the experience under my belt.

This is the way we learn. We try and we succeed or we try and we fail. Either way it’s the process that counts.

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