Author: Katie Strickland Major: International & Global Studies; Political Science
With a virtual internship, my desk became my central work hub for the semester as I worked on supporting all-virtual programming for EIIS. Here, I am tuning in to our Welcome Webinar for the Food and Sustainability Certificate students.
It was a January afternoon in Fayetteville, Arkansas (so naturally, it was 70 degrees and sunny). It was only the second week of classes for the Spring 2021 semester, so motivation and morale were both high. I sat down at the desk in my room, the same one I had been consistently sitting at for a semester already, and plugged my charger into my laptop. Once the computer buzzed to life, I settled in for my first assignment of my virtual internship at the European Institute for Innovation and Sustainability (EIIS), an institution located in Rome, Italy. I located the right Powerpoint file in my inbox, opened it up, and stared at it for a couple minutes. Italian words ran across each slide, sending my mind searching through the brain files for any trace of Italian to accompany my native English and the working level of German college had given me. Nothing was surfacing. My eagerness to start began to be outweighed by my fear of failing.
This task represented only the beginning of many which were initially unfamiliar to me. As an International and Global Studies/Political Science major, I had always dreamed of holding an internship such as this, with an international non-governmental organization devoted to dialogue on global issues that often intersect in unique ways. The opportunity provided with the help of the Rome Center to intern at EIIS certainly fell right in place for that interest, especially in its focus on the relationship between food security and sustainability, two topics I had already been studying in my coursework. Yet even more than the subject matter I was able to research and learn about from a variety of perspectives in the course of my work, the experience I gained within a professional environment providing real problem-solving and generating concrete content that was actually incorporated into the institute’s programs and services was the most satisfying takeaway.
The Powerpoint did not remain in Italian; with the help of Google Translate, I was able to roughly convert the language and edit from there in order to create a cohesive presentation for English-speaking program participants. My ability to think through multiple pathways to achieving goals and produce thorough, detail-oriented results would continue to prove itself useful throughout the rest of my internship tasks. As the Food and Sustainability Certificate Program Intern, I was assigned to help the Program Coordinator Sveva Ciapparoni and Luca Di Leo, the Director of Food and Sustainability for EIIS. Most of my internship work focused around both internal and external communications preparing for the roll-out of the certificate program towards the end of my internship. Almost all of these tasks were new to me initially and required hard work and perseverance from me to continue learning new skills and striving for effective work in whatever I was doing.
One of my major responsibilities revolved around news media tracking to help provide source material for the EIIS management team to use in their efforts to market the program. I would research various international news sources nightly, revolving through a running list of websites to pull at least three new articles each day covering some topic in food and sustainability that overlapped with course themes (i.e. education, innovation, etc.). Once the news articles were located, I would summarize them and enter them into a Google Sheet tracker prior to notifying my supervisors before their Italian workday began that the new articles were prepped for them. I began seeing some of these articles incorporated into my director’s LinkedIn posts as advertisements for enrolling in a program over similar topics, bringing a sense of pride as I witnessed the tangible results of my work.
The other major assignment I worked on for the majority of my internship involved the supplemental materials for the actual course. Given the video files for each of the course’s lectures, I was charged with transcribing these lectures, sometimes as long as thirty minutes to an hour, into an edited and polished script with the help of transcribing software. Once the script had been created, I would then insert the various sections into a design template for a lecture guide and select photos that were relevant to the material covered to be featured on each page of the document. These guides were then used for reviews by program students, again allowing me to see the value of the work I was directly able to contribute. Additional tasks beyond these central two involved completing a marketing analysis, editing various certificate program brochures, and other similar tasks.
Simply put, I enjoyed the work I was doing and was proud of the products I submitted. As someone who hopes to work in an international setting in the future, and especially among types of organizations like EIIS, I found accumulating practical, international experience through my virtual internship to be extremely rewarding and confidence-building. The idea of working with people from different countries and cultures was no longer a hypothetical for me; it was a reality, one which provides a firm foundation as I look ahead to my future goals and professional career. Working virtually also enabled me to become comfortable with nontraditional working environments that require different expectations and workplace dynamics. While most of my previous working experiences, indeed those I prefer, have been in an in-person environment already conducive to free-flowing communication and collaboration, interning virtually meant that my supervisor and I had to be intentional about incorporating clear communication and teamwork into a workflow structured by inboxes and scheduled Zoom calls. This intentionality helped me to define my own working style, expand the types of professional environments I can confidently contribute to, and strengthened my ability to work in a multilateral team, even one which lives and works thousands of miles away.
This virtual experience was not always sunshine and roses. My internship was not just characterized by the positive and interesting peaks it held, but also by the challenges and opportunities for growth that issued from them. On the one hand, many of my assignments were large projects with long due dates, meaning that I needed to chip away at the work rather than my usual habit of completing the closest task to me until I arrive upon a deadline with ten tasks finished and none of them being the main project due soon. Such a dilemma would also occur with my daily news monitoring assignments, where I would often find myself at the beginning flipping frantically between various news sites and searching different combinations of related keywords to try and squeeze the best stories to report back before my supervisors would arrive at work in Rome. New habits are hard to form, but in this case, they were necessary if I wanted to perform well and establish my reliability as an intern. I worked hard to find new ways to juggle my classwork and internship, sitting down periodically to craft timelines for my various projects and committing to meet the deadlines I set for myself, even if the only person who could hold me accountable during that process was myself. I have always had high expectations for myself and the work I produce; now, I had to be proactive to ensure that I could continue meeting those and contributing to EIIS and its mission with the capacity and quality of service I wanted to give.
As I look ahead to my goals for the future, from law school in my postgraduate life to an eventual career hopefully working in building relationships between the public sector and international organizations like EIIS, I am positive that I will return to my virtual internship as a touchstone for both effective skills and habits that I have attained and experience working with a team that brings different professional norms, primary languages, time zones, and cultural backgrounds to the table. While I have always dreamed of interning in Rome (and have indeed had two other summer internships there cancelled due to COVID-19), the opportunity to intern for EIIS and engage with the food security, sustainability, and technology communities there was one I will cherish for years to come. The University of Arkansas and the Rome Center have my full gratitude for connecting my laptop and desk on the Hill to the Seven Hills of Eternal City, and I would encourage any student to take advantage of such an opportunity!
Reflective Essay (3-5 pages)
As someone much wiser than me once said, “If at first you don’t succeed, try try again.” For my virtual internship experience with the European Institute for Innovation and Sustainability in Rome, Italy, this statement could not ring truer. Prior to Spring 2021, I had been offered two State Department summer internships in Rome at the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See, both of which were cancelled due to COVID-19. I craved to put my campus experience in the classroom and student organizations to practical use, pairing action with the concepts and best practices in tackling global developments and problems that my classes had versed me in.
As an International and Global Studies major, I had always dreamed of holding an internship like this, with an international non-governmental organization devoted to dialogue on global issues that often intersect in unique ways. The opportunity provided with the help of the Rome Center to intern at EIIS certainly fell right in place for that interest, especially in its focus on the relationship between food security and sustainability, two topics I had already been studying in my coursework. The role was new, but the field I would be working in felt oddly familiar, as terms, ideas, and institutions from classes such as International Food Security and Sovereignty taught by Dr. Jared Phillips and European Integration led by Dr. Laurence Hare were peppered throughout EIIS conversations and projects. In the midst of higher-level, big-picture conversations on how to create dialogues on food security and the development of sustainable technology, I felt somewhat comfortable; I could understand and even actively contribute. Yet even more than the subject matter I was able to research and learn about, the experience I gained within a professional environment providing real problem-solving and generating concrete content that was actually incorporated into the institute’s programs and services was the most satisfying takeaway.
My ability to think through multiple pathways to achieving goals and produce thorough, detail-oriented results would continue to prove itself useful throughout the rest of my internship tasks. As the Food and Sustainability Certificate Program Intern, I was assigned to help the Program Coordinator Sveva Ciapparoni and Luca Di Leo, the Director of Food and Sustainability for EIIS. Most of my internship work focused around both internal and external communications preparing for the roll-out of the certificate program towards the end of my internship. Almost all of these tasks were new to me initially and required hard work and perseverance from me to continue learning new skills and striving for effective work in whatever I was doing.
One of my major responsibilities revolved around news media tracking to help provide source material for the EIIS management team to use in their efforts to market the program. I would research various international news sources nightly, revolving through a running list of websites to pull at least three new articles each day covering some topic in food and sustainability that overlapped with course themes (i.e. education, innovation, etc.). Once the news articles were located, I would summarize them and enter them into a Google Sheet tracker prior to notifying my supervisors before their Italian workday began that the new articles were prepped for them. I began seeing some of these articles incorporated into my director’s LinkedIn posts as advertisements for enrolling in a program over similar topics, bringing a sense of pride as I witnessed the tangible results of my work.
The other major assignment I worked on for the majority of my internship involved the supplemental materials for the actual course. Given the video files for each of the course’s lectures, I was charged with transcribing these lectures, sometimes as long as thirty minutes to an hour, into an edited and polished script with the help of transcribing software. Once the script had been created, I would then insert the various sections into a design template for a lecture guide and select photos that were relevant to the material covered to be featured on each page of the document. These guides were then used for reviews by program students, again allowing me to see the value of the work I was directly able to contribute. Additional tasks beyond these central two involved completing a marketing analysis, editing various certificate program brochures, and other similar deliverables, all of which were new to me and provided me with a chance to familiarize myself with new skills and technology.
Simply put, I enjoyed the work I was doing and was proud of the products I submitted. As someone who hopes to work in an international setting in the future, and especially among types of organizations like EIIS, I found accumulating practical, international experience through my virtual internship to be extremely rewarding and confidence-building. The idea of working with people from different countries and cultures was no longer a hypothetical for me; it was a reality, one which provides a firm foundation as I look ahead to my future goals and professional career. Working virtually also enabled me to become comfortable with nontraditional working environments that require different expectations and workplace dynamics. While most of my previous working experiences, indeed those I prefer, have been in an in-person environment already conducive to free-flowing communication and collaboration, interning virtually meant that my supervisor and I had to be intentional about incorporating clear communication and teamwork into a workflow structured by inboxes and scheduled Zoom calls. This intentionality helped me to define my own working style, expand the types of professional environments I can confidently contribute to, and strengthened my ability to work in a multilateral team, even one which lives and works thousands of miles away.
I also consider myself grateful to have worked with EIIS. I myself am a firm believer in the power of bringing various people, institutions, and more together in order to engage in dialogue that seeks to unite groups around a common goal and pool resources and ideas towards resolving long-standing issues, both in the local and global spheres. Working with EIIS not only allowed me to play a part in bringing some of those conversations to life, but it has also given a behind-the-scenes look at the mechanics of such organizations and all of the various roles that combine to produce an efficient organization and an effective service. I was introduced to a global community fairly new to me and was able to see how various tools could be implemented to produce positive change.
This virtual experience was not always sunshine and roses. My internship was not just characterized by the positive and interesting peaks it held, but also by the challenges and opportunities for growth that issued from them. On the one hand, many of my assignments were large projects with long due dates, meaning that I needed to chip away at the work rather than my usual habit of completing the closest task to me until I arrive upon a deadline with ten tasks finished and none of them being the main project due soon. Such a dilemma would also occur with my daily news monitoring assignments, where I would often find myself at the beginning flipping frantically between various news sites and searching different combinations of related keywords to try and squeeze the best stories to report back before my supervisors would arrive at work in Rome. My night-owl working hours had to be adjusted as the time which I normally treated as a space to leisurely catch up on assignments was now the time when most assignments would need to be completely ready for my supervisors’ review. New habits are hard to form, but in this case, they were necessary if I wanted to perform well and establish my reliability as an intern. I worked hard to find new ways to juggle my classwork and internship, sitting down periodically to craft timelines for my various projects and committing to meet the deadlines I set for myself, even if the only person who could hold me accountable during that process was myself. I have always had high expectations for myself and the work I produce; now, I had to be proactive to ensure that I could continue meeting those and contributing to EIIS and its mission with the capacity and quality of service I wanted to give.
As I look ahead to my goals for the future, from law school in my postgraduate life to an eventual career hopefully working in building relationships between the public sector and international organizations like EIIS, I am positive that I will return to my virtual internship as a touchstone for both effective skills and habits that I have attained and experience working with a team that brings different professional norms, primary languages, time zones, and cultural backgrounds to the table. My time working with the European Institute for Innovation and Sustainability has in fact shaped both my intellectual and professional interests, as my honors research focuses also on the interactions of international organizations (in my case, Catholic international humanitarian organizations) and the communities they operate in, both with the public and private sectors, and I hope to direct my future legal career to helping facilitate the the type of international agreements, dialogues, and collaboration that EIIS advocated for as well. The opportunity to intern for EIIS and engage with the food security, sustainability, and technology communities around the world was one that has and will continue to provide a strong guiding force for me for years to come.