Institut für Europäische Politik
This summer, I worked as an intern at the Institut für Europäische Politik in Berlin, Germany. Some of my principle duties on the job consisted of providing supporting research to ongoing projects of the various researchers at the institute (particularly in the areas of trade deals, cybersecurity, and Euroskepticism), translating documents from German to English, gathering sources for and releasing our biweekly Ukraine Newsletter, verifying statistics and figures, and proofreading publications. However, my main responsibility was to coordinate the EU-28 Watch project. This annual publication submits a list of questions on current European political themes to institutes and researchers from every member state of the European Union, the answers to which it then publishes online and in print for public reference. My job consisted of locating authors and institutions, answering questions on project guidelines, and intensive editing and standardization of submitted documents in order to make them suitable for publication. The project still had several more rounds of editing and author consultation before I left, but the final result should be published in October of this year.
But aside from my work responsibilities, I was also able to expand my own repertoire of skills during my time abroad. First of all, I significantly increased my knowledge of German to the point where I conducted the majority of workplace interactions in that language exclusively. Outside of work (where nearly everyone spoke English anyways), I used German for all interactions. Secondly, I greatly developed my initiative-taking and independence. Living alone in a foreign country, I took charge of every aspect of my schedule, my health, and my wellbeing. Not one to let an opportunity slip by, I traveled all across Germany whenever I had the chance: to Hamburg, Leipzig, Nuremberg, the Alps, and of course, all across Berlin. I made it my goal to acculturate myself to the German way of life as much as possible: cooking German food, reading German books, adjusting to German standards... My thinking is that living, studying, and working abroad is an incredible opportunity, one for which it would be a shame to go in with half-measures. I can confidently say that I left Germany with a greater ability to adapt to new circumstances, to adjust to new norms, and to make the most of every opportunity.
This summer, I worked as an intern at the Institut für Europäische Politik in Berlin, Germany. Some of my principle duties on the job consisted of providing supporting research to ongoing projects of the various researchers at the institute (particularly in the areas of trade deals, cybersecurity, and Euroskepticism), translating documents from German to English, gathering sources for and releasing our biweekly Ukraine Newsletter, verifying statistics and figures, and proofreading publications. However, my main responsibility was to coordinate the EU-28 Watch project. This annual publication submits a list of questions on current European political themes to institutes and researchers from every member state of the European Union, the answers to which it then publishes online and in print for public reference. My job consisted of locating authors and institutions, answering questions on project guidelines, and intensive editing and standardization of submitted documents in order to make them suitable for publication. The project still had several more rounds of editing and author consultation before I left, but the final result should be published in October of this year.
But aside from my work responsibilities, I was also able to expand my own repertoire of skills during my time abroad. First of all, I significantly increased my knowledge of German to the point where I conducted the majority of workplace interactions in that language exclusively. Outside of work (where nearly everyone spoke English anyways), I used German for all interactions. Secondly, I greatly developed my initiative-taking and independence. Living alone in a foreign country, I took charge of every aspect of my schedule, my health, and my wellbeing. Not one to let an opportunity slip by, I traveled all across Germany whenever I had the chance: to Hamburg, Leipzig, Nuremberg, the Alps, and of course, all across Berlin. I made it my goal to acculturate myself to the German way of life as much as possible: cooking German food, reading German books, adjusting to German standards... My thinking is that living, studying, and working abroad is an incredible opportunity, one for which it would be a shame to go in with half-measures. I can confidently say that I left Germany with a greater ability to adapt to new circumstances, to adjust to new norms, and to make the most of every opportunity.
Student Conference on National Affairs (SCONA)
SCONA has defined my college experience more than any other facet of my time at A&M. I have had the privilege of serving in various capacities with SCONA for almost three years now. SCONA is one of Texas A&M's oldest and most prestigious student organizations. Founded in 1955, its goal is to provide a forum for students across the globe to discuss the role of the United States in world affairs.
Last year, I served as the Chief of Staff, where I oversaw a team of 5 directors, each with their own sub-committees. My job was in part managerial, in that I assigned my team tasks and followed up with them to completion, helping along the way as needed. However, I also contributed to executive decisions along with the SCONA Chair and Vice-Chair, using my "veteran's" knowledge as a guide for the future. As for the conference itself, my principle duty was to head up the SCONA's production of the International Strategic Crisis Negotiation Exercise (ISCNE) in cooperation with the US Army War College. I was in charge of preliminary meetings with the Army leadership in charge of running and designing the exercise, and I also coordinated and managed operations on the ground during the ISCNE itself, which occurred over two days and involved nearly 100 participants. Additionally, I also took a leading role in designing and implementing a new marketing strategy for SCONA. One of my goals coming in to this position was to reach a larger audience while also deepening their engagement with our advertising material and maintaining SCONA's reputation for professional, academic work. In pursuit of this goal, I have helped design fliers and mailings; wrote, edited, and/or reviewed marketing and fundraising pamphlets; and I developed a new email system that makes use of more attractive layouts and better information placement to maximize viewership. Besides these goals, I also took on responsibilities and challenges I never imagined I might face. Website design and maintenance, for example, does not feature in my university curriculum or as a personal hobby, but when SCONA lost its technology director, I applied myself to learning a new skill.
Prior to becoming Chief of Staff, I served as the Director of Programming, a job which entailed the selection and invitation of speakers and facilitators for our annual conference, as well as budgetary record keeping, and VIP hosting. My primary duty as Director of Programming was invitations. Managing a team of four sub-committee members, I produced dozens of formal invitations to academics, military leadership, and public officials inviting them to serve as facilitators or keynote speakers at our conference. Overall, my sub-committee and I successfully brought four keynote speakers and twelve facilitators to our conference. Additionally, as the host and point-of-contact for all facilitators during our three-day conference, I arranged for transportation and hosted meals and briefing sessions where the facilitators could get to know one another and the conference. Behind the scenes, the SCONA leadership and I coordinated all of the aforementioned activities with simultaneously occurring events during the conference. Lastly, I also took on other functions as needed, such as introducing speakers, checking in on delegate needs, and meeting with donors.
In my Freshman year, I served on the Research Sub-Committee, where I wrote five, one-page briefs on roundtable topics for dissemination amongst participating delegates. Originally assigned only three, I took on additional work when fellow members had to deal with heavier course loads. Additionally, I served as a Roundtable Host for the topic on human rights in East Asia. Here, I led a group of seven delegates along with their expert facilitator through the complicated ins and outs of the conference schedule. As most of our delegates do not know one another, I also took on the role of "conversation starter" along with our facilitator.
SCONA has defined my college experience more than any other facet of my time at A&M. I have had the privilege of serving in various capacities with SCONA for almost three years now. SCONA is one of Texas A&M's oldest and most prestigious student organizations. Founded in 1955, its goal is to provide a forum for students across the globe to discuss the role of the United States in world affairs.
Last year, I served as the Chief of Staff, where I oversaw a team of 5 directors, each with their own sub-committees. My job was in part managerial, in that I assigned my team tasks and followed up with them to completion, helping along the way as needed. However, I also contributed to executive decisions along with the SCONA Chair and Vice-Chair, using my "veteran's" knowledge as a guide for the future. As for the conference itself, my principle duty was to head up the SCONA's production of the International Strategic Crisis Negotiation Exercise (ISCNE) in cooperation with the US Army War College. I was in charge of preliminary meetings with the Army leadership in charge of running and designing the exercise, and I also coordinated and managed operations on the ground during the ISCNE itself, which occurred over two days and involved nearly 100 participants. Additionally, I also took a leading role in designing and implementing a new marketing strategy for SCONA. One of my goals coming in to this position was to reach a larger audience while also deepening their engagement with our advertising material and maintaining SCONA's reputation for professional, academic work. In pursuit of this goal, I have helped design fliers and mailings; wrote, edited, and/or reviewed marketing and fundraising pamphlets; and I developed a new email system that makes use of more attractive layouts and better information placement to maximize viewership. Besides these goals, I also took on responsibilities and challenges I never imagined I might face. Website design and maintenance, for example, does not feature in my university curriculum or as a personal hobby, but when SCONA lost its technology director, I applied myself to learning a new skill.
Prior to becoming Chief of Staff, I served as the Director of Programming, a job which entailed the selection and invitation of speakers and facilitators for our annual conference, as well as budgetary record keeping, and VIP hosting. My primary duty as Director of Programming was invitations. Managing a team of four sub-committee members, I produced dozens of formal invitations to academics, military leadership, and public officials inviting them to serve as facilitators or keynote speakers at our conference. Overall, my sub-committee and I successfully brought four keynote speakers and twelve facilitators to our conference. Additionally, as the host and point-of-contact for all facilitators during our three-day conference, I arranged for transportation and hosted meals and briefing sessions where the facilitators could get to know one another and the conference. Behind the scenes, the SCONA leadership and I coordinated all of the aforementioned activities with simultaneously occurring events during the conference. Lastly, I also took on other functions as needed, such as introducing speakers, checking in on delegate needs, and meeting with donors.
In my Freshman year, I served on the Research Sub-Committee, where I wrote five, one-page briefs on roundtable topics for dissemination amongst participating delegates. Originally assigned only three, I took on additional work when fellow members had to deal with heavier course loads. Additionally, I served as a Roundtable Host for the topic on human rights in East Asia. Here, I led a group of seven delegates along with their expert facilitator through the complicated ins and outs of the conference schedule. As most of our delegates do not know one another, I also took on the role of "conversation starter" along with our facilitator.
Teaching Assistant, GERM 101
In the fall of 2013, I worked as the Teaching Assistant for the primarily online section of German 101. As a sophomore, I was very young for a TA, but I did not allow this to worry me. My job consisted of meeting with two different classes of 20-25 students on a weekly basis to go over the most challenging material from what they had been assigned over the previous week. Because this was a predominantly online section, my partner and I were the only in person instructors for these two classes. Generally, my TA partner and I received our lesson plans only a few hours before the class began, so I had to learn to think on my toes while still projecting the confidence and self-assurance needed to be a convincing teacher. My teaching goal in the class was to make difficult to understand grammatical concepts (verb conjugations, declension of pronouns, etc.) as accessible as possible for beginning students. For example, I would explain the accusative case for German pronouns ("er" versus "ihn") by relating it to a similar, albeit vestigial, structure in the English language, e.g. "he" versus "him." At the end of the semester, my partner and I were pleased to learn that our two online sections had performed as well as, if not better than, the traditionally instructed classes, which had historically not been the case.
In the fall of 2013, I worked as the Teaching Assistant for the primarily online section of German 101. As a sophomore, I was very young for a TA, but I did not allow this to worry me. My job consisted of meeting with two different classes of 20-25 students on a weekly basis to go over the most challenging material from what they had been assigned over the previous week. Because this was a predominantly online section, my partner and I were the only in person instructors for these two classes. Generally, my TA partner and I received our lesson plans only a few hours before the class began, so I had to learn to think on my toes while still projecting the confidence and self-assurance needed to be a convincing teacher. My teaching goal in the class was to make difficult to understand grammatical concepts (verb conjugations, declension of pronouns, etc.) as accessible as possible for beginning students. For example, I would explain the accusative case for German pronouns ("er" versus "ihn") by relating it to a similar, albeit vestigial, structure in the English language, e.g. "he" versus "him." At the end of the semester, my partner and I were pleased to learn that our two online sections had performed as well as, if not better than, the traditionally instructed classes, which had historically not been the case.