Because I am receiving credit for completing my internship as part of my capstone requirement for my master's program, I was required to draft a final essay that would evaluate my experience here. This included describing the tasks that I have undertaken at the internship, considering the skills that I have learned, analyzing how my practical experiences fit in with my graduate education, and taking a few moments for some personal reflection. I have included my thoughts from the final two categories, because I believe I have already covered "what I do" at the internship in my first few posts, and the analysis of how this practically applies to what I learned at SIA is more course-specific than a general audience would care to read.
1) Professional skills acquired: describe in details the skills you acquired during the internship that will help you in your future career options
Interning in the liaison office for the University of Freiburg and Eucor has been a truly wonderful experience, and I have learned a lot through the multitude of opportunities I have been exposed to while here at the consulate.
Of pressing interest to me was developing skills in a German work environment. While I had studied in German at the University of Freiburg in 2016 and recently passed my B2 proficiency exam, I was anxious to test my skills and improve my fluency in a German work environment. My boss and colleagues have been supportive, speaking to me entirely in German and providing me with opportunities to complete translation work in a professional setting. Additionally, working at the consulate has allowed me to develop important skills like understanding the finer points of professional German email and phone etiquette, or even work etiquette, and I am certain that these cultural understandings that I have gained will serve me well in the future.
Additionally, working at the consulate has been an excellent networking opportunity, as I hope to work with German-American organizations in the New York area following my graduation from Penn State. I have gotten to work with other organizations based here in the consulate, such as the DAAD and the German Center for Research and Innovation, and this collaboration has provided me insight into future career opportunities. Furthermore, my work building the Uni-Freiburg alumni network throughout the United States has afforded me the opportunity to communicate with a number of German-American professionals and work on building a network that could develop into future professional opportunities.
I have also honed my public relations and journalistic skills through this experience. Dr. Lemmens has been of particular help in this area, because he used to work as a political journalist in Germany while he was completing his PhD. He has provided me with excellent pointers and advice when it comes to framing an article, drafting questions for interviews, conducting professional interviews, and thinking about the optics of the final, published work when making such decisions as photo selections. I have found my work writing PR articles for the University of Freiburg about research topics and alumni incredibly useful, as well as a great addition to my professional body of work that I can showcase to future employers.
Practically I have also learned or improved upon technical skills that are of considerable use. First, I have developed a greater understanding of social media marketing, particularly on LinkedIn and Facebook. While I have managed Facebook pages and marketing before, I encountered and worked through several new challenges in how content is displayed and shared that are a result of the stricter regulations Facebook has created in the wake of the 2016 election. I also managed the Neon CRM (Customer Relations Management) database with all of the alumni profiles, and the alumni North America website, which is hosted on WordPress. I worked to improve the functionality of both of these systems and create exciting web content and email campaigns, all of which are valuable skills to have in this digital age.
2) Personal reflection: Take stock of the experience and reflect on what you learned, what you could have done better, what you excelled at. Were there surprises? What expectations held true? What would you do differently next time? How did the experience help you develop as a leader? How did it help you develop as a team player? How did it contribute to your training in international affairs?
This experience helped me grow in operating independently as a professional. Dr. Lemmens would go through the tasks for the day or the week with me in the morning, and then was often called away to other appointments or telephone calls. In this case, I had to be extremely self-sufficient in my work and driven in accomplishing everything or making productive use of my time without immediate supervision. In particular I had to develop a professional and independent sense of motivation and work ethic during the several weeks in which Dr. Lemmens was called away on business in Germany. While we had almost daily phone calls to discuss important tasks, I spent most of the day working on my own. I learned to set my own deadlines and schedule in order to remain engaged, productive, and on task. During this time, I coordinated appointments and conducted alumni interviews, and worked extensively on the development of the website and the database. While I have always been self-motivated in my school work, this was the first opportunity in which I had to operate professionally in an almost entirely independent manner, and I learned how to keep myself interested and on-task without having my boss sitting around the corner asking for updates.
One change I would make is probably start networking sooner. Time flew by during my interlude here at the consulate, and before I turned around, I was already halfway through my internship. In the future, once I was settled, I would probably be more proactive about trying to arrange lunches or conversations with other people who work here. I am going for lunch with the head of cultural and science here next week, but I think I should have tried to get coffee with some of the other people in the DAAD or the GCRI, or even with the interns, a bit sooner.
One thing that caught me by surprise -- and led me to feel that I should have been more proactive networking -- is how seriously Germans take their vacation time. All of my office has been missing at one point or another during the months of June and July for vacation as well as to touch-base with their home organizations in Germany. At times this left the office feeling extremely empty, and made it hard to know who would be at work when I came in each day. This, of course, made networking or getting to know my coworkers a bit more complicated than anticipated, although I had a great time meeting the other university liaisons who work on my floor at the start of my internship when we had a string of almost-weekly birthday lunches and celebrations.
Sitting in on the meetings that Dr. Lemmens has had with other American universities as he works to foster research agreements, and doing general work for the Uni-Freiburg has broaden my interests in doing international education work specifically. I have found these negotiations and work engaging and meaningful, and could see myself doing something similar in the future, which is an exciting realization to figure out. Ultimately, I could not have asked for a better experience than this internship.
1) Professional skills acquired: describe in details the skills you acquired during the internship that will help you in your future career options
Interning in the liaison office for the University of Freiburg and Eucor has been a truly wonderful experience, and I have learned a lot through the multitude of opportunities I have been exposed to while here at the consulate.
Of pressing interest to me was developing skills in a German work environment. While I had studied in German at the University of Freiburg in 2016 and recently passed my B2 proficiency exam, I was anxious to test my skills and improve my fluency in a German work environment. My boss and colleagues have been supportive, speaking to me entirely in German and providing me with opportunities to complete translation work in a professional setting. Additionally, working at the consulate has allowed me to develop important skills like understanding the finer points of professional German email and phone etiquette, or even work etiquette, and I am certain that these cultural understandings that I have gained will serve me well in the future.
Additionally, working at the consulate has been an excellent networking opportunity, as I hope to work with German-American organizations in the New York area following my graduation from Penn State. I have gotten to work with other organizations based here in the consulate, such as the DAAD and the German Center for Research and Innovation, and this collaboration has provided me insight into future career opportunities. Furthermore, my work building the Uni-Freiburg alumni network throughout the United States has afforded me the opportunity to communicate with a number of German-American professionals and work on building a network that could develop into future professional opportunities.
I have also honed my public relations and journalistic skills through this experience. Dr. Lemmens has been of particular help in this area, because he used to work as a political journalist in Germany while he was completing his PhD. He has provided me with excellent pointers and advice when it comes to framing an article, drafting questions for interviews, conducting professional interviews, and thinking about the optics of the final, published work when making such decisions as photo selections. I have found my work writing PR articles for the University of Freiburg about research topics and alumni incredibly useful, as well as a great addition to my professional body of work that I can showcase to future employers.
Practically I have also learned or improved upon technical skills that are of considerable use. First, I have developed a greater understanding of social media marketing, particularly on LinkedIn and Facebook. While I have managed Facebook pages and marketing before, I encountered and worked through several new challenges in how content is displayed and shared that are a result of the stricter regulations Facebook has created in the wake of the 2016 election. I also managed the Neon CRM (Customer Relations Management) database with all of the alumni profiles, and the alumni North America website, which is hosted on WordPress. I worked to improve the functionality of both of these systems and create exciting web content and email campaigns, all of which are valuable skills to have in this digital age.
2) Personal reflection: Take stock of the experience and reflect on what you learned, what you could have done better, what you excelled at. Were there surprises? What expectations held true? What would you do differently next time? How did the experience help you develop as a leader? How did it help you develop as a team player? How did it contribute to your training in international affairs?
This experience helped me grow in operating independently as a professional. Dr. Lemmens would go through the tasks for the day or the week with me in the morning, and then was often called away to other appointments or telephone calls. In this case, I had to be extremely self-sufficient in my work and driven in accomplishing everything or making productive use of my time without immediate supervision. In particular I had to develop a professional and independent sense of motivation and work ethic during the several weeks in which Dr. Lemmens was called away on business in Germany. While we had almost daily phone calls to discuss important tasks, I spent most of the day working on my own. I learned to set my own deadlines and schedule in order to remain engaged, productive, and on task. During this time, I coordinated appointments and conducted alumni interviews, and worked extensively on the development of the website and the database. While I have always been self-motivated in my school work, this was the first opportunity in which I had to operate professionally in an almost entirely independent manner, and I learned how to keep myself interested and on-task without having my boss sitting around the corner asking for updates.
One change I would make is probably start networking sooner. Time flew by during my interlude here at the consulate, and before I turned around, I was already halfway through my internship. In the future, once I was settled, I would probably be more proactive about trying to arrange lunches or conversations with other people who work here. I am going for lunch with the head of cultural and science here next week, but I think I should have tried to get coffee with some of the other people in the DAAD or the GCRI, or even with the interns, a bit sooner.
One thing that caught me by surprise -- and led me to feel that I should have been more proactive networking -- is how seriously Germans take their vacation time. All of my office has been missing at one point or another during the months of June and July for vacation as well as to touch-base with their home organizations in Germany. At times this left the office feeling extremely empty, and made it hard to know who would be at work when I came in each day. This, of course, made networking or getting to know my coworkers a bit more complicated than anticipated, although I had a great time meeting the other university liaisons who work on my floor at the start of my internship when we had a string of almost-weekly birthday lunches and celebrations.
Sitting in on the meetings that Dr. Lemmens has had with other American universities as he works to foster research agreements, and doing general work for the Uni-Freiburg has broaden my interests in doing international education work specifically. I have found these negotiations and work engaging and meaningful, and could see myself doing something similar in the future, which is an exciting realization to figure out. Ultimately, I could not have asked for a better experience than this internship.