Author Archives: Emily R Bickle

Thankful

This semester has consumed my life and pushed me to constantly be moving. Each second I stop and reflect, I realize how many amazing opportunities I have been afforded and I can only hope the rest of my life will contain just as much chaos. I got to interview Vijay Prashad after reading his book The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution. I had the chance to be standing right next to Kim Barker whose work as a journalist was made into the novel, The Taliban Shuffle: Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then turned into the major motion picture, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot”. Lastly, I was inspired by Grant Berry who is a Ph.D. candidate in Spanish and Language Science in the Department of Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese. His CGS Brown Bag on linguistics pushed me to start my own research. 

This semester has shown me what is possible for one person to accomplish. I can’t imagine having spent my time this fall doing anything else. I feel truly encouraged and exhilarated by all I have experienced. It has been a pleasure to get to know amazing people such as Sarah, Mary, Emily H., Parker, and Rana throughout my journey. Each one of them has encouraged and motivated me to be a better writer, interviewer, global citizen, friend, and person. They have contributed to my successes along this journey. It has been quite the adventure this past semester and I know this experience will only encourage me to dive into new challenges as my life progresses.

I know from here, I will take this experience with me as I travel to France next semester. I will know how to be calm in stressful situations. I will know how to engage with others around me academically and socially as I make new friends. Lastly, I will know how to be confident and put myself into unknown situations. As I continue to grow and eventually graduate, I am grateful to have had this internship to help me understand myself and my determination to make a difference in our world. I want to fight for what I believe in. Now more than ever seems like the perfect time to start. 

Thanksgiving is next week and I want to end by saying simply how thankful I am to have had this opportunity. This is not goodbye but a see you soon.

Emily

Bienvenue, Bienvenido, and Welcome!

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My name is Emily Bickle and I will be serving as a CGS intern this semester. As part of my internship, I will be blogging about our department, as well as my hectic life and many endeavors. I am a junior at Penn State University and I am delighted to be working with the fall semester Center for Global Studies interns. I am majoring in Global & International Studies and French & Francophone Studies as well as pursuing minors in Spanish and Business & Liberal Arts. In order to introduce myself and the expectations I have for the internship, I want to share three important characteristics I use to define myself.

First, I am adventurous and love tackling mountains, literally. Over the summer, I led a group of ten incoming Penn State Freshman in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Throughout the hike, I experienced moments when I questioned my abilities. When we reached the summit of this beast of a mountain, Mount Eisenhower, and the clouds blew out of sight  revealing the endless beauty of New Hampshire, I felt endless possibilities. In the same fashion I tackled that mountain, I plan to tackle this internship. I plan to have moments of doubt and yet continue taking step after step forward to achieve change and growth in myself and our community. I am looking forward to taking on the challenge of organizing and leading an event this semester that will encourage others to learn more about our world and then teach others about what they learned.IMG_1684

The second thing you should know about me is I value compassion. I want to devote my life to helping people. I have spent countless hours over the past five years volunteering at several places in the State College community. I want to continue this same kind of work in hopes of benefiting our shared planet. This internship will help me explore volunteering through education. I believe my work with CGS will be valuable practice for future careers where I will continue trying to educate people on different global issues and helping everyone reach their potential as global citizens. As I grow through this internship, my main goal is to teach others the role they play in contributing positively to society. My career goals, while not completely defined, are highlighted under the realm of non-profit work. I most simply put want to give back to the world and lend a hand where I can.

Lastly, I am curious about the world and I want to discover more. I am hopeful this internship will provide an outlet for me to connect to the larger world through working with guest speakers and other interns. I am looking forward to learning from their vast knowledge while sharing some of my own insight. I love a good challenge. I expect this internship to allow me to explore my curiosity within the world of global studies. The best way I can describe my curiosity is to tell a about when I was in England over the summer. I visited Stonehenge on a tour bus with 40 other students. Upon my arrival, I was intrigued and captivated instantly by the mystery of these huge rocks. My first instinct was to purchase a book and read about the theories people had created to explain these thousand year old rocks. This internship and my life in the future will be driven by the same curiosity I demonstrated on that sunny day under the rocks. I will always be asking questions, researching, engaging in conversation, and digging deeper to satiate my curious tendencies.

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Throughout this internship, I promise to be adventurous, compassionate, and curious. I have high expectations for this internship, myself, and my future career. Keep checking into the CGS blog for more information on the internship and my progress throughout the year!