IE3 Global Internships

Katherine Larsen, a recent OSU graduate, interned with IE3 in Cape Town, South Africa during the summer of 2014 at the Cape Town Refugee Centre. Majoring in Human Development and Family Sciences through the College of Public Health and Human Sciences, Katherine was able to help counsel and provide guidance to refugees in the small community of Observatory. She is currently pursuing a Masters of Social Work graduate degree from Portland State University and plans to focus her career on clinical social work with the intent to work abroad in the future. Read on to learn about the ups and downs of returning from a life-changing IE3 Global Internship!

It has been a year since I have returned to the United States. I still cannot believe that my time abroad is over. As I reflect back on my 10-week internship at the Cape Town Refugee Centre, it feels as though time simply flew by, although I know that each day was packed with adventure. There are so many qualities that I have gained through this experience and I feel as though I have changed in a more than noticeable way. Not only do I feel more independent, I feel confident in myself as a person, a future social worker, and a community member. I have made an abundance of new relationships and now have global friendships that will last a lifetime. By consistently challenging myself to work diligently at the Cape Town Refugee Centre, I have gained valuable skills that will stay with me throughout my future career. Through volunteering and living within a new culture, I connected to the suburb Observatory and the city of Cape Town in an unexplainable way.

I learned an abundance of life lessons throughout this experience. I took time daily to reflect on my experiences, journal, and conduct continuous research regarding South Africa. One of my favorite pieces of reading I completed during my internship abroad was “After Mandela: The Struggle for Freedom in Post-Apartheid South Africa” by Douglas Foster. The biggest lesson I learned was that I cannot have control over all situations. This trip allowed me to be more spontaneous and to stop sweating the small things. My stress levels had never been so low! In addition to learning to go with the flow, I learned how to immerse myself deeply into a culture and adapt to the changes in lifestyle. My work as an intern at the Cape Town Refugee Centre taught me that everybody has a story and I will never learn that story if I judge a book by its cover. Opening myself up to experiences and simply listening during one-on-one conversations has massively shifted my opinion of others and has taught me to be more empathetic to those who are different than me. Furthermore, I have come to realize how much circumstance plays a role in an individual’s life. I worked with people in South Africa that have worked so hard to better their situation but were held back by many obstacles. Many people will continue to struggle throughout their lives, simply because of the family and geographic region they were born into. I will hold all of these realizations that I made during my global internship with me for the rest of my life.

Coming home and learning to adapt back to the United States’ way of life has been a challenge. One of the most frustrating parts of ending an internship abroad is my inability to explain in words what my experience was like. Friends and family have asked me to share what it was like and although I try my best, nothing comes close to what my summer actually was. Cape Town is a city unlike any other place I have ever been and it is hard to capture in words the beauty of the culture and the people. I especially miss walking to the train in the mornings and seeing Table Mountain hovering over the city. Regardless of my struggles adjusting, being home with my loved ones is wonderful.

Although my time in South Africa has come to an end, I know that I will return to the wonderful neighborhood of Observatory in the future. There is a quote on the streets of downtown Cape Town that holds so much truth: “I came here to change Cape Town, but Cape Town changed me.” I feel blessed to have had such a wonderful experience in the amazing country of South Africa. I left part of my heart in the city of Cape Town and I cannot wait to visit my second home again soon.

To learn more about the study abroad and international internships OSU offers, click here!

This blog entry is by Erin Chapman a Human Development and Family Sciences major at Oregon State University. She is an IE3 Global returnee.

In Fall 2014 I had the amazing opportunity of spending 3 months in Cambodia working as an intern for a non-profit NGO called Cambodian Organization for Children and Development. This is a blog entry taken from Day 49 of my trip in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

I have reached and passed the halfway point for this amazing adventure and the first thing that comes to mind…I am not ready to leave. So much has happened in just 6 and half weeks. I have learned so much about Cambodia, about this beautiful culture, about working and living abroad, about COCD and working in a non-profit organization, and about myself. This experience is changing my life.

This is not a countdown though. I’m not thinking how many days I have left but instead I am going to think about now and what I can do to make the most of every moment. When it comes to my internship with COCD, up to this point I have been easing into the office culture and finding my place. Now I am going to use this time to focus and contribute as much as I can to support the staff and the clients. Also, I have two big goals I need to cover: 1.) Learn as much of the Khmai language as I can, 2.) learn how to cook some Khmai food. I’m sharing these goals with you all so you can hold me accountable! I can do this!

There is one very personal thing I want to share about what this trip has meant to me so far. My home back in Oregon is wonderful and I love and miss all my friends and family so dearly. At the same time, I have never felt more accepted and happy in my life then how I feel here on this adventure. I have met some wonderful people who have made me feel incredibly loved and fulfilled. Some things in life are meant to be and I KNOW I am meant to be here. I feel as though I have found a place where I belong and this trip is definitely going to have a huge influence on what happens next in my life after I graduate from Oregon State. I still don’t have any idea what those plans will be though. I’m just going to have to wait and see!

So as usual, lots of exciting things have happened in the past week. Within the past 8 days I have:
– Dressed up as a lion for Halloween dodgeball (rawr!)
– Joined some of the staff from COCD on a full day visit to the Pursat Province to observe a meeting and discussion about a new project proposal
– Ate some fried crickets, worms, frogs, AND TARANTULA!
– Hiked 7 kilometers around the Anloung Chen Island with a group of 60 people
– Went on a 3 day trip to the beautiful beaches of Sihanoukville
– Joined a van full of teachers to the beach, and on the way, got stuck in the most ridiculous 40 kilometer (24 mile) traffic jam you can imagine. Somehow we managed to get out of it in about 4 hours (it doesn’t sound all that bad, but there was definitely potential for us to be stuck there for days)
– Spent a couple nights in a hostel literally ten steps away from the Gulf of Thailand waters
– Made some new friends with people from all across the world (Spain, England, Cambodia, US)

Throughout my trip, the adventures were endless.

To read Erin’s full blog, follow this lin k!

Marie Sato was greatly affected by her time studying abroad in the United States. She loved it so much, she decided she wanted to help other students feel the same way about her country! Marie is a Resident Director through IE3 Global at Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.

What brought you to be a Resident Director?
My study abroad experience in the U.S. was one of the most influential factors in my decision to work for the IE3 Global program in Japan. I can’t express how much I was supported by my friends, roommates and friends’ families while I was in an unfamiliar place and studying in a foreign language. This stems from my strong sense of obligation (giri), in which individuals repay each other by returning gifts (okaeshi) given to them.

What are some unique aspects of your city and country?
Tokyo’s railway system is one of the very unique aspects of Tokyo with 13 subway lines and more than 100 surface routes. Also, students can do many activities in the limited time. Visiting museums, Japanese Gardens, Akihabara (a district in Tokyo), shrines, cat cafés and many other places is possible every weekend. Many students visit Kyoto, Osaka, Hokkaido, Okinawa and many other places in Japan during vacations. It is difficult to decide where to begin exploring given the many options!

What is one thing most of your students may not know about you?
I am a chocolate lover. Students who visit me eventually discover that I always have chocolate in the drawer in my office.

What are some of your favorite aspects of being a Resident Director?
One of my favorite aspects of being an RD is having the chance to learn from both students and host families. It is not easy being away from family and friends and attempting to live in a country where English is not the first language, but I have been able to see how both students and host families try to learn from each other through personal acts of kindness beyond the language barriers. Another great aspect is seeing students again when they return to Japan. Some of them come back as JET English teachers and some of them come back to spend time with their friends or host families again. I have already seen 5 former students in 2014-2015 and enjoyed talking about their memories of being in Japan and their future goals.

What are some of the challenges of your job?
Being on duty for 24 hours is one of the challenges. I actually receive emergency phone calls from students and host families in the middle of the night almost every year. Saying goodbye to students is also another challenge of my job. Their time in Japan feels short to me as I enjoy spending time with them and seeing how they improve in Japanese and learn the Japanese culture.

What have you seen as the biggest challenge for incoming students?
Commuting on the crowded train in the morning rush hours is the first and biggest challenge for incoming students. However, the new experience makes students understand that they are in a different country. Without a manual or guidebook, they learn how to stand and use their cell phone in the very limited space on the train; they learn to adapt.

What is your advice for students planning to attend your program, or to study abroad in your country?
Students can start preparing for study abroad in Oregon. Some students say in the first meeting or write in their essay that they would like to experience “cultural exchange” but students have the chance to help the exchange students and other students from other countries on their own home campus. Students can also start researching places they would like to visit in Japan and make their own list of “Things To Do in Japan”. If students are not taking a Japanese class at their home university, I would highly recommend that they find Japanese students on that campus and start a “language exchange” so that they won’t be nervous communicating with their Japanese host families and Japanese friends when they arrive in Japan. These preparations will make the beginning of the new life in Japan start smoothly.

What is one thing you think students shouldn’t forget to pack for life in your country?
I think I would say to pack one thing which makes the student feel happy. It could be an English book, organic food, or cheese flavored Doritos. Some students have been missing many foods which they can’t easily get in Japan. For example, Reese’s chocolate is one thing students have a hard time to finding here.

What do you think is the most important take-away for education abroad students?
Through a study abroad experience, students can find different values from ones which are closely tied to the way students have been raised in their countries. It is important to step outside to see and feel different values through diverse experiences in a different country. Students will be able to use their experience to achieve future goals, even those beyond language, race, culture and religion.

To learn more about attending Marie’s program follow this link!

Laurie Armatas has been a Registered Nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital in the labor and delivery department for 20 years. Her daughter, Hilary, is following in her footsteps in becoming a nurse. While majoring in Public Health at OSU, Hilary went on an IE3 Global Internship to Durban and Cape Town, South Africa, to be part of the Child and Family Health International program. In this entry, Laurie writes about how it felt to send her child to South Africa, and provides a mother’s perspective on education abroad.

Hilary in Cape Town l Hilary Armatas — Hilary in Cape Town, South Africa.

When Hilary heard that she had been chosen to go to South Africa on a medical internship with IE3 Global she was ecstatic. She had spent a year working to accomplish the goals she had set for herself that would make her a desirable candidate for the program. As her mother I was incredibly happy for her, but I must confess that there was some trepidation. She was going to be traveling half way around the world, and immersed in a culture she knew very little about.

Working in the health care field myself, I worried that practices in a developing country may not be what I believe to be safest for the practitioner. Would they teach her to wear protective covering when needed? Would there be resources available to provide the protective covering for her? I also worried that she might not realize what she needed to do to be safe, not just in the hospitals and clinics, but out in the communities as well. What would the families she would be living with be like? Would they support her if she needed it? I gave her far more instruction than I’m sure she wanted or needed, and then I left her with probably the most important advice…get all she possibly could from the experience, open her eyes as well as her mind, and enjoy herself!

She followed my suggestions and had what she describes as the “best time in her life”. She was pretty sad when it was time to come home. The adjustment once home seemed to be hard. Her situation is likely different from others because she came back to hear she had been accepted into nursing school and would be leaving her friends at Oregon State to pursue her nursing degree. In any case, she came home a more mature and self-confident person, with clearly defined goals in place. The experiences she had in South Africa really helped her fine tune the path she wants to travel and the goals she wants to meet.

My advice to other parents whose children are heading off to experience the world on an IE3 Global internship would be to learn what you can about the culture they will be immersed in so you can help them to be safe (they will probably think you are being overprotective), stay in contact with them (we used Whats APP on our cell phones ), and they will likely need (want?) more money than you think. Hilary earned all she took with her, but ended up borrowing some so she could do the once in a life time things that came up (bungee jumping and caged shark diving!!!). Finally, I would advise parents to send them off to have the “best time in their life”.

When I was in nursing school there was no treatment other than supportive care for HIV/AIDS. Hilary’s internship opportunities taught me that it is now considered a chronic condition that can be well managed with available resources and education. I think it would be fulfilling to help provide that, and to be a tiny bit instrumental in improving the health status of a population in need. Because of the amazing experiences Hilary had, we are talking about the possibility of going back together once she has finished nursing school to volunteer in a medical venue.

Recent OSU graduate, Charles Baugh, completed his undergraduate career by participating in the IE3 Global Internship program. A Nutrition major with pre-med option, Charles interned in India through CFHI International.

Whether it was shadowing medical professionals, visiting local non-profits or fulfilling his childhood dream of visiting the Taj Mahal, Nutrition student Charles Baugh’s internship abroad experience in India is one he’ll never forget.

“My favorite aspect is getting to have conversations with doctors about patients we have seen during the day and hearing their take on current public health issues,” he says. “There are so many brilliant people to learn from here, and I have had a wonderful time being their observer and becoming their friend.”

For the majority of the internship, Charles shadowed doctors across India working in traditional and Western medicine specializing in naturopathy, Ayurveda, homeopathy, pediatrics, gynecology, emergency medicine and family practice.

He spent the remainder of the internship visiting non-governmental organizations, non-profits and government-funded public health organizations.

Charles-Baugh-Synergies “India has many domestic public health issues they are battling such as general sanitation, population issues and access to health care,” he says. “Through this internship, I have learned that I want to pursue a career as a medical doctor and work on improving access to health care for minorities and financially insecure populations.”

To read the full story, visit the Synergies website by College of Public Health and Human Sciences.

Recent OSU graduate Lauren Thomas took advantage of the opportunity to fulfill the internship requirement for her Public Health degree through IE3 Global Internships during Winter 2014. Interning with the Center for Social Medicine in India, Lauren gained both valuable professional and personal experience, and wrote this reflective entry while still overseas.

The hospitality in India is something that I really admire about the culture and I already know that one of the things I will miss most when I return home is how welcoming everyone here is – it is unlike anything I have ever experienced. From day one we were invited into all aspects of people’s lives – their school, their hospitals, and their homes. Everyone has been so accepting, understanding, and excited to teach us all that they can about the culture and the language. They are also very proud, always making sure to mention how much they love the Indian culture.

This blog was originally published on the IE3 Field Notes Blog. For a link to the original entry, click here.

Sarah Proffitt is a recent graduate of Oregon State University, where she studied Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences through the College of Agricultural Sciences. Sarah interned at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia through IE3 Global Internships during summer 2013 and served as an IE3 Global Internships Student Ambassador after returning to the States.

Many of us have heard the phrase “everything in Australia is trying to kill you,” but I would argue just the opposite—that everything in Australia made me feel alive! In the summer of 2013 I ventured to the Northeast coast of Australia for an IE3 internship working with several species of bats.

As a wildlife science major, I had been training for the past three years to conduct my own research and decided on a behavioral project observing a colony in Cairns. Each day I would sit in front of the colony, which consisted of about 700 large fruit bats, and observe them for 6 hours. I wrote down aggression behaviors, grooming, sleeping, etc. The idea was to find out what these bats were doing all day. As a nocturnal species I expected to observe sleeping bats all day but I found they were much more active and took intermittent naps throughout the day.

When I wasn’t at the colony I took part in other studies such as mist netting for small blossom bats to determine diet and volunteering at a local bat rehabilitation center. Each experience had its own challenges but with every challenge comes a great reward. The experiences I gained from my IE3 internship have led me to my first job as a college graduate. As of May 2014, I have been working for the Forest Service as a bat surveyor in the Missouri Ozarks. Without my IE3 internship I wouldn’t have even been a candidate for this job. My future boss was impressed with my experience and told me I was her first choice, right off the bat (no pun intended).

Now that I’ve graduated, I would eventually like to go back to school to pursue a Master’s degree. As for now, I am planning on taking a few years to work in my field. Maybe I will find new inspiration or maybe I will find myself abroad again. That’s what is so great about the future…it is life’s greatest mystery.

OSU Abroad

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Category Archives: IE3 Global Internships

Back to the Real World

Making the Most of Every Moment

Meet a Resident Director: Marie

The Best Time in Her Life: A Mother’s Perspective on Education Abroad

IE3 Internship confirms student’s passions & future aspirations

A Home Away From Home

Bat Habitat Down Under

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