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.
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As promised, this week I am including my interview with Freiburg alumna Sarah Stephens. Sarah was especially interesting to talk to because she, like me, was an American exchange student at Freiburg. She used her experience abroad to perfect her mastery of the German language and ultimately shape her career path. She worked in Germany for many years, and today has an interesting career as the head of a talent agency based in New York that places opera singers, conductors, and stage managers in mid-level opera houses, primarily in Germany. She was very interesting and inspiring to speak with, and I had a lovely time interviewing her. The interview is below:
Sarah Stephens shares how a year in Freiburg led to a lifetime of experiences in Germany and beyond Leading the German consul-general through an afternoon of opera in New York City is reality for Sarah Stephens now, but an experience she could not have dreamed of when she embarked on a study abroad program through IES to Freiburg in 1976. While she wanted to spend her junior year abroad, her initial choice to study German had been driven simply by a desire to be different than her older sisters, who had taken French and Spanish. A serendipitous decision stemming from sibling rivalry was to change her life, and her view of the world, forever. Stephens fell quickly and deeply in love with Freiburg, and with life in Europe in general. She was drawn in by the culture, the beautiful landscape, and the ability to travel so quickly. She still speaks lovingly about walking the streets of the city at night, wandering to the Münster or along the Bächle, snacking on Würst in the Münsterplatz, and participating in life in the city. “Ever since then I’ve wanted a life that is [part of] a community—I love it when there’s life on the streets and that’s part of the reason I live in New York City.” She is also quick to stress how important learning the German language became to her once she was in Freiburg as a tool to truly understand the people and the culture that were swirling around her. “I was blessed to have a very, very good teacher, and I studied hard.” As an exchange student, she noted that it was sometimes difficult to remain committed to immersive language learning, whether because her IES classmates were slipping back into English at social gatherings, or because she encountered helpful Germans trying to ease her way by switching to English, but she persisted, even through the occasional lonely days. She committed to memorizing the complicated grammar and politely indicating her desire to speak German, not English, in social settings in order to truly gain an understanding of the years of history and culture around her—an understanding that plays an important role in her work today. “I never would have dreamed in a thousand years that I would be doing this back in then, but I know the understanding that I worked hard to gain of Germany has served me well personally and professionally.” Stephens’ time abroad made such an impression that she pursued her career in Germany, founding International Artists Management in Bremen in 1996, and was granted her Künstleragentur license in Germany in 2000, and for the European Union and internationally in 2001. She moved to New York ten years ago to expand her work, and today she helps place emerging singers and musicians at mid-level opera houses throughout Germany. She notes that while she operates in both the United States and Germany, more often she places talent in German opera houses because public funding of the opera house means there are more job opportunities there than in the United States. Her artists have performed in theaters throughout Europe including the Staatsoper in Berlin, Covent Garden in London, Opéra Bastille in Paris, Stockholm, Basel, Zürich, Graz, Bayreuth Festival, Semperoper in Dresden, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Bayerische Staatsoper in München, Mannheim, Leipzig, Bremen, Oldenburg, Kiel, Darmstadt, Augsburg, Nürnberg and Münster. Her most recent project takes her away from the stage and behind the camera. Stephens has stressed that the project is in the preliminary stages but mentioned that she is currently working on creating and producing a television show centered around the themes of racial and social justice that emerge around a (fictional) case of an extra-judicial police shooting (although a character based at the opera in Berlin will make an appearance). In crafting her tale, which will describe the collision of three Midwestern families, Stephens emphasizes her desire that the story and the characters be “authentic.” During the process of developing the story, she interviewed a police officer, who thanked her for letting him tell his story. Stephens attributes her passion for finding understanding and digging deeper into people’s stories to her time in Germany as a student. “Having those years in Germany heightened my cultural awareness and helped me slash stereotypes and clichés and in the end it helped me realize the humanness of it all. I think when I first went to Germany, it was only twenty or thirty years out [from the Second World War], and I did walk around wondering what role the people on the street had played. And then I started learning people’s stories as soon as I learned the language and I learned the many sides to it… I learned [to hear people’s stories] in Germany, and it has really enriched my life.” Her commitment to seeing a story from many sides, and to searching for authentic understanding, is evidenced in her motto, which she shared at the 2017 Freiburg Alumni Reunion weekend. “There’s that lovely spot in Freiburg, Schauinsland, where you can take the cable car up and ‘see into the land’ all the way to the Alps… my motto would ‘Schau in die Welt’ -- that’s what I learned to do in Freiburg. In that charming, wonderful little bubble I learned to see the world.” Stephens’ penchant for experiencing differing Weltanschauung, or perspectives of the world, which she learned in Freiburg, has also driven her continued connection with the University through the alumni chapter in New York and beyond. “It’s wonderful to be connected with people who have an understanding of what it’s like to be on both continents and that’s hard to find in the U.S., and easier to find in Europe… I appreciate being with other Germans or other Americans who have a different Weltanschauung. The experiences are incredibly rich, and we can have different conversations about politics and history and cultural differences… And I like the people.” It’s clear that the Uni-Freiburg means a great deal to Stephens, both from her past experiences and her present actions. In April she graciously welcomed her fellow alumni into her home in New York and provided an introduction to “Luisa Miller” before the group viewed the performance at the Met as part of Alumni Freiburg’s Day at the Opera. Rumor has it that another such event is in the works for the fall, and you can be sure that the day will offer many more chances to take Sarah Stephens’ advice and engage in stimulating conversations that will broaden your Weltanschauung. A Quick Q&A: Q: What would be your advice for people who are interested in becoming more familiar with opera, but have no idea where to start? A: “First of all, I do frequent opera introductions. Come to one? Opera has this hurdle that it is hard—you have to somehow jump over it. It’s different than a theatre or a movie where you can go in knowing nothing and still get something out of it; that’s not so much the case with opera. I would recommend having some sort of introduction through a friend. I have a friend in NYC who does monthly interviews. Find a way to learn a bit more about the art that will help you overcome the hurdle. Find a friend or get a book. Find some way to start and learn a bit about it first. Be sure to read through a synopsis beforehand if you go to the Met… and just listen to the music, it’s just so compelling and overwhelming—if you are a music lover, it’s really all about the music and the story that is told through the music, in the music, by the music, it’s all about the music.” Q: Your company operates out of both Berlin and New York. What are some of the similarities or differences you notice across the transatlantic divide? A: “Germans are a lot more straightforward and serious. I appreciate that. They’re very easy to deal with because you know where you stand—and where we can negotiate.” Q: What advice do you have for current students at the University of Freiburg? A:“I’m a big fan of [the late] Anthony Bourdain, and as he would have said, go into the smaller nooks and crannies, go to local restaurants, travel out, open your eyes, see the world, seize the opportunity to hit the streets and get on a train and walk the streets, frequent the small local restaurants. Be observant, observe all of the differences. Open your mind and your world. And [if you’re American] learn the language—make sure you get out and say, ‘Ich möchte gerne Deutsch sprechen.’” As part of the effort to develop the North American alumni network, Markus tasked me with interviewing four different alumni of the University of Freiburg in order to write short profiles that could be used for marketing. This past week I conducted two of those interviews.
I prepared for the interviews by researching a bit about each of the alumni, mainly on the internet and from any information that Markus could tell me. From this information, I developed three or four specific questions related to the work or life of each individual, and then I spent some time developing a broader list of questions that I could ask all four individuals. I created this collection of questions by looking suggested questions for job interviews, and from reading through different Penn State interviews with distinguished alumni to see what sort of questions had been asked in the university setting. Here was the complete list of general questions I created:
The two alumni I spoke with this week were a neuroscientist involved in CurePSP which is an organization garnering support for patients suffering from PSP -- a disease similar to Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease, but less well-known, and a talent agent for American and German opera singers. My discussions with each of them were extremely rewarding, and I'm excited to share the finished interview articles once I have the approval to publish them. This week I am going to take a few moments to talk about something that I’m sure everyone in the PLA has neglected at one point or another: self-care.
This summer has been amazing so far -- I am loving my internship and living in New York. But I learned the hard way the past two days that just because you are happy, doesn’t mean you can’t be stressed. Stress is often associated with negative emotions because the two so often coincide, but you can overwork yourself even when you’re enjoying it. It’s just harder to notice, and for me, I tend to associate summer with relaxation and school with stress, so I didn’t realize that I was maybe, just maybe overdoing it until I came back from my lunch break on Tuesday and realized I could barely sit up straight, I felt so exhausted. After muddling through another unproductive hour of the afternoon, I gave in and decided I would go work from home. My boss is still in Germany, and we had already had our daily phone call about all of my assignments, so it wasn’t an issue for me to work remotely. However, when I reached my apartment, I barely was able to post the article I had been working on before I fell asleep. In retrospect, I am not surprised. We had guests visiting for most of the weekend, which meant that there was little downtime, and I ended up having to finish all the homework for my online class on Sunday afternoon when I was already feeling exhausted. Monday night I had forced myself to work ahead for the next week because I am going out of town, and tried to complete some of the coding I am working on for a PhD student in the German department. In addition to my schoolwork and internship, I am also working on a novel with my cousin, and I was feeling pressure to meet our next internal deadline, which was supposed to be Tuesday evening. But ultimately, when I was in a puddle on Tuesday, I realized I had to take a break. I emailed my boss Wednesday morning and he said it was absolutely fine for me to take the day off, and then I slept almost the entire day. Note to self: do not do that again. And while I have been eating well and exercising regularly, I guess it’s important to also realize the physical strain that so many mental pressures can put on you, even if you are feeling happy with your situation. An off-topic anecdote to brighten the day in the wake of the news that Germany was eliminated from the World Cup and that Justice Kennedy is resigning: I discovered this amazing campaign called the Billion Oyster Project, which is organized by a high school here in New York and is aiming to restore 1 billion oysters to the New York harbor system by 2035. This looks like an amazing project and I really hope to be involved some day, although their current volunteer days are on weekdays, which conflict with my work schedule. They do have opportunities for you to set up a larger volunteering session building reefs or helping with the project if you are with a group, which could be a cool opportunity for PLA in a few years when they return to New York City. As a Penn State student, a strong and passionate alumni network is a force that I have come to taken as a given. The number of dedicated alumni is evident every football weekend in the fall as thousands of former students descend upon their alma mater, in the enthusiastic "We are!" cries you can hear around the globe, or the commitment to giving back to the University with generous gifts like that which funded the Presidential Leadership Academy. While I knew that Penn State's alumni network is half a million strong and has been voted the number one alumni network in the country, I had never really stopped to think about why that works or how it has gotten to that point, until a discussion that took place in my office last week.
A number of the German universities in my office, including Freiburg, are working to develop substantial alumni networks, but the system that is so commonplace in the United States has not been a traditional part of German culture. Much of my work over the past week has been alumni development work -- contacting alumni by email and LinkedIn and requesting they update their profiles in Freiburg's database, sending out "Save the Dates" for a reunion weekend in July, and researching and reaching out to potential ambassadors that could serve as points of contact for each state. The database for Freiburg's North American alumni is by no means a complete source of information, and in almost all cases I had to supplement my research through LinkedIn. Nevertheless, I persisted because my boss, Dr. Lemmens, is working hard to bring some of the fierce sense of connection that drives American universities to Freiburg by building this essential infrastructure. Several other universities within the consulate are employing similar tactics, but the directors for the universities shared similar frustrations or wonder about how to really inspire passionate and dedicated connections to the Universities. While they identified a sense of elitism that can fuel alumni connections to prestigious universities -- people are excited to be a part of an exclusive network, and therefore more inclined to flaunt these connections or utilize them -- they were running into issues figuring out how to drive excitement in connecting to a network that prides itself in the variety of people it serves an options it offers. This second option sounded a lot like Penn State to me, and while I know that I find the alumni network a valuable resource in terms of professional development, that still doesn't explain to me why the Penn State alumni network functions stands out above other similarly-sized American universities. I don't think that the desire to connect with alumni for professional reasons is unique to Penn State, but I have been told by employers and articles that they are often astounded with how dedicated Penn State alumni are to helping out their fellow Penn Staters. The German university directors pointed to sports as a strong source of "Korpsgeist" -- literally, "corps spirit" or strong sense of belonging and pride in a group -- that drives American university alumni but does not exist at German universities because of a lack of college athletics. It is undoubtable that the "Korpsgeist" inspired by Penn State football is a huge draw for many, many Penn State alumni, but I still refuse to believe this is the only reason we have a successful alumni network. Plenty of other schools have alumni who are passionate about sports -- Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State, or Michigan, but they don't rank as highly as Penn State. Furthermore, I know plenty of successful students that don't care one way or the other about Penn State football who I am sure would still happily serve as a professional resource for future Penn Staters. Many of these students do have strong connections with other student organizations that they participated in while at Penn State and built prevalent personal memories. Maybe this is where German universities are lacking -- while my experience was certainly different as a one-semester exchange student, I still know that I found considerably fewer clubs at Freiburg, and because there was no on-campus living, I think students build less of a school-centered identity or sense of community, and tend to live life in a more every-day, true to "real-life" fashion. Perhaps this has a formative impact in later years? I'm interested to hear any thoughts that people would like to share! The second week of my internship has been extremely eventful. This week, on Wednesday, my office and the German Center for Research and Innovation were hosting an expert breakfast as well as a larger, panel event on the topic of precision medicine. Basically, precision medicine is a new field of research that looks at treating diseases, such as cancer, by targeting and attempting to repair the certain gene that is being attacked or destroyed, and therefore the disease is classified by the gene it affects rather than by the site affected. The conference we hosted brought together experts to discuss how to tackle some of the challenges associated with precision medicine.
These challenges are linked to the complexity of genetics, and include the fact that it can be very difficult to isolate a certain gene as the cause of a cancer — because many other factors within each person’s body can influence has the disease affects them, but this might not be discernible in isolated lab tests. Additionally, when working to fix a specific mutation, it might turn out that the “cure” for that mutation is only specific to a very small pool of people affected with that specific affliction, so it’s difficult to make it a cost-efficient solution, or to test its effectiveness on a large enough sample of patients. Because each person’s genetic code is so complicated, it can also be expensive to test for a person’s code, especially because it can change and evolve, which would require multiple testings over the course of time. Furthermore, saving this genetic information leads into a whole range of ethical questions about where the information should be stored and who has access to it. Finally, there are challenges because of how quickly cancer can evolve and adapt — a solution that works at one point may become impotent if the cancer mutates, making it harder on patients who have to run all of this expensive testing just to have it change. While my academic interests are largely based in the social rather than the natural sciences, I found it extremely interesting to think about the many interdisciplinary angles of precision medicine. This issue cannot be solved only by the scientists and doctors doing research; it also involves the tech wizards who might implement blockchain technology, or create better and more secure ways of saving genetic data. It involves the lawyers and policymakers and economists who will figure out how to create a new system of healthcare that can deal with the higher costs of precision medicine and provide access to patients in need, all while operating within the systems of different nations. It also requires policymakers to fund education and realize the importance of research, supporting younger researchers so they can gain enough experience to conduct more in-depth research needed for this field. One of the challenges that the scientists in the room spoke about was the lack of sustained funding that they faced, which — both in America and in Germany — made it harder to have grad students or post-docs that could afford to work in the same lab for enough years to get beyond learning basic protocol and conduct the high level research with the degree of accuracy demanded by their fields. Under the current system, most postdocs and grad students were forced to move on to other positions for financial reasons, and could not spend seven or eight years in the same lab, which meant that research groups were forced to invest more time in training new people with the basic skills for the lab rather than working on more advanced skills. This discussion between professionals of all different fields — large Pharma companies, insurance lawyers, esteemed scientists, grad students, government bureaucrats, university representatives, and even medical startups — reminded me of the kind of conversations that PLA works to initiate, and it was fascinating to watch this multidisciplinary approach in action in the “real” world working to solve important problems like how to defeat cancer. On Friday, I concluded my first week of my internship experience at the Liaison Office of the University of Freiburg and Eucor for North America, which is located in the German consulate in New York. Although I have only been there a short while, it has already been an exciting and engaging experience, and I think it will serve as a wonderful capstone experience for my master’s program with the School of International Affairs.
I have been fortunate enough to work with the amazing director of the New York Liaison Office, Dr. Markus Lemmens, who has been kind, enthusiastic, and patient. He and the other members of my office speak with me almost entirely in German, which is already proving to be incredibly beneficial for my German skills. Furthermore, this kind of immersion was something I feared I could only experience by returning to Germany for some period of time, but in many ways my experience working at the German consulate had proved much more beneficial in terms of practical development of my language skills. Utilizing my German skills in the work environment is giving me a chance to build my professional vocabulary and strengthen office and business skills that will serve me well in any future job entailing German communication. When I interviewed for several positions this past spring, one question that arose did concern the extent of my experience and comfort level using German in a professional environment, and thanks to this internship, I feel that I am steadily increasing my skills in this field in a way that travel or even academic study in Germany did not provide the opportunity to do. Additionally, working in a German organization in the United States allows me to avoid the trap that so often captures many Americans that go abroad to try and work on their language skills — I am not enthusiastically approached by people hoping to work on their English skills. One of the greatest challenges I faced when I was studying abroad was the fact that many Europeans or other students I met were just as eager to practice their English as they were their German (or, if they were native Germans, to use their English) so they would switch to speaking to me in English rather than patiently allow me to try and practice my German. Furthermore, when I was living within communities of exchange students, even those whose first language wasn’t English were often more comfortable in their English skills than their German and would default to using English as the common language to cross language barriers between cultures, stranding me in an area of utilizing my native language rather than building any of my foreign language skills. Here, however, I’m not the only American insight; besides the normality of using German as the working language because almost every one else who works there is German, there are plenty of opportunities for my colleagues to step outside the building and put their own English skills to use. Markus has been great about identifying a number of areas of professional skills for me to develop over the course of the summer, and has assigned me projects to work on these skills, which include marketing and professional relationship development, journalistic writing, event logistics, and fundraising. I am excited to report on my experiences with each of these specific areas of interest as the summer progresses. |