I am very excited to be back for another semester with the Center for Global Studies! I had a very beneficial and exploratory experience with the Center last semester, and I hope to continue to grow and step out of my comfort zone within all areas and tasks for CGS.

Some specific goals that I have for myself is to focus and dedicate myself to the academic and networking aspects that this internship has to offer. I want to continue working on my writing and reporting skills for the newsletters, and I want to engage within the discussions and topics that the Center sponsors for exploring the concepts and essence of the global studies framework. Stepping out of my comfort zone and pushing myself to be more engaged with the speakers will prove to be a challenge for me, but I want to use every opportunity to push myself and establish valuable connections and experiences for my future, both academically and professionally.

While those were some personal goals, I also want to contribute to spreading the mission of CGS by engaging in my own event planning and volunteering at as many events that work towards inviting others to participate and be involved within the global arena. Through these efforts, I will try to be more committed to social media and marketing aspects than I was in my previous experience with the Center.

All in all, I want to be as helpful and supportive as I can through this fall semester, and I want to continue to learning new professional skills and be given more responsibility to complete certain tasks. I am looking forward to being a resource for our new intern, Sarah; however, I am also excited to learn from Sarah and her previous experiences. I am very excited for this upcoming fall semester, and I look forward to all of the events that CGS is sponsoring!

As I reflect on my time at the Center for Global Studies this semester, I look back with nothing but gratitude for the chance to earn a lot of tangible skills. As a freshman, I was a bit intimidated by the idea of interning with students older than me; however, I learned that they are actually great role models and provide really great advice on future endeavors.

Some of the responsibilities that I had at the Center were attending lectures and other events, writing about the lectures for the monthly newsletter, attending World Stories Alive! and various other tasks Sarah, Shannon, and Emily needed me to do.

My big project for the semester was to compile information about faculty members at Penn State that related to the mission of the Center for the National Resource Center Grant awarded by the US Department of Education. This was a huge project that I was interested in right as Sarah mentioned it to me in our interview. Even though the information was pretty simple, I enhanced my research skills and learned how to be more proactive and creative about where I find certain information. I also had a deadline that Sarah and I set, and it was right in the middle of a hectic time of the semester. However, I used my time management skills and tried to prioritize the tasks that needed to be done. Time management and responsibility were two values that Sarah and I spoke of during our interview, and while I felt like I had a good handle on them then, I definitely have improved as well.

My favorite part about the Center is the fact that there are limitless opportunities for the tasks that need to be done. I like that Sarah tries to cater the learning experience to what the interns are interested in. Therefore, I am really excited to announce that I will be coming back to the Center next semester! I am really excited to further my professional relationship with the Center, Sarah, Shannon, and all of the other staff affiliated with the Center. My goals are to plan my own event during International Studies week, to become a type of mentor to the new interns, and to work on more challenging things for the Center.

Thank you to everyone involved at CGS this semester; it was an incredible experience for me!

As it is April, and we have 1 month left for the internship, I reflect on my time at CGS thus far very positively! We just completed our 2nd newsletter for the semester where I wrote 2 reflections on the events that I participated in. I conducted an interview with Dr. Richard Delacy and volunteered at a number of CGS sponsored events.

For the second half of this semester, I have been working on various grant research projects for Sarah that have been very detail oriented. I appreciate that Sarah is giving me these tasks because it is giving me the space to work on my time management skills and research and compiling information skills. I think the most important part of an internship is learning how to act in a professional setting, and CGS has been a really good entry point for me within that area. I really like working with Sarah, Shannon, Emily, and my other two amazing interns, Nay and Zack. It is a really collaborative environment filled with laughs and an easy and comfortable vibe.

World Stories Alive! is almost over; there is 1 more event April 14th. I have participated in 3 WSA! events, and it is one of the most amazing programs that CGS is doing. I am amazed at how connected the community is to bilingual learning, and it is really humbling to see the same people show up every weekend. The platform CGS sets up in order for these events, and all other events, to happen with professionalism and care is really inspiring for me to witness.

As for the rest of the semester, I am helping with the Undergraduate Symposium on April 6th, where our very own Nay is presenting! I am also working on compiling information of faculty bios for the NRC Grant. I volunteered at German Day where I was a chaperone for about 2 hours. The program is a really amazing resource for high school students to have pride in learning another language and recognize that, at Penn State, there is an outlet for whatever anybody wants to learn.

I am sad that my time at the Center is ending, but I am really appreciative for the opportunity to work with all the incredible people I mentioned above and be involved in promoting global studies at Penn State.

My first month experience at The Center for Global Studies was already very impactful for me personally and professionally. The environment at the office is really collaborative and has a lot of open space to ask questions and to be hard-working, which I really appreciate and respect. Being a freshman, it is a really cool thing for me to experience being in a professional setting with individuals who are very different from me because I can learn from their experiences and their expertise.

I had already attended a couple of events through CGS such as the SIA lecture given by James Piazzia on Terorism, an event with Lisa Ko, author of The Leavers, and an event co-sponsored with the CGS and the Career Enrichment Network on a workshop for Jobs and Internships in the Government during Liberal Arts Career Week. All of these events were very diverse and really informative for me on things that I can use academically, professionally, and personally.

I really enjoyed the Terrorism lecture because it gave me some insight into the professor who I might end up taking a class with next year. I enjoyed the event with Lisa Ko because it was in a different setting to talk about global issues in terms of having those hard discussions on immigration through fiction and personal stories. The workshop on Jobs and Internships in the Government is one that I am going to write about in the newsletter because they gave out so much professional information on how to apply for a job/internship on a database as difficult as USAJOBS, or how the timelines of applications and when to be thinking about certain opportunities and how to prepare for them while making the most of your time at Penn State. All of these different events already have me thinking in various different directions on how we can have global conversations on campus through different mediums.

Lisa Ko Speaking at Schlow Library on Jan 29th

As for my expectations for my time at the Center, I really don’t have many. I came to this experience with an open mind, so I don’t want expectations to affect my outlook or opinion on the work that I am going to be doing. Sarah really took to heart the goals that I shared with her during my interview and already gave me a small grant writing project that I am working on currently, which I really appreciate! I don’t want to have expectations because I want to develop myself through various different tasks that I hope to be doing, so I don’t want anything to deter me from that development.

Overall, I am really happy with my time at CGS already, and I am really excited for all of the upcoming projects!