Global Vision, Global Action: Opening Doors and Minds

(Photo: Owen Egan)

“It opens a new door,” says Lauren Walshe-Roussel, BA’09, about interning abroad. In summer 2008, she travelled to Costa Rica with a group of eight other students. They lived in a small rural community, working with Asociación Probienestar de La Gamba to foster sustainable community development. “It definitely confirmed my interest in international development.”

Internships are an ideal way for students to translate their classroom experience to the real world. And it’s not only for international development studies (IDS) majors: 19 departments and programs are represented, from art history to women’s studies. Of the 206 Arts interns in 2009, 63 received an Arts Internship Award, which covers a portion of travel and living expenses. Walshe-Roussel received the Tania Zouikin Arts Internship Award in International Development.

Anthony Buccitelli, BA’09, received the Allan A. Hodgson Arts Internship Award. “I cannot sufficiently express my appreciation for Mr. Hodgson’s contribution,” says Buccitelli, also an IDS major, who interned with the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice of Ghana.

“I loved interacting with people while researching in the field,” says Buccitelli, adding: “I probably learned more from them than they did from me.”

Both students are now heading to Britain. Walshe-Roussel will pursue the Erasmus Mundus Master’s Program in Public Policy, which starts at the University of York and finishes at the Barcelona Institute of International Studies. Buccitelli will begin his master’s in public administration at the London School of Economics.