Congratulations Christina Murphy – Returning to Chile on a Fulbright this Fall

Christina at work on her internship

Christina Murphy, a senior in Fisheries and Wildlife (College of Agricultural Sciences), International Degree, and University Honors College at Oregon State University, has been awarded a Fulbright to return to the Estacion Costera de Investigaciones Marinas (ECIM) in Las Cruces, Chile to conduct marine research.
ECIM is part of the Pontifica Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile and is internationally known for the quality of its work. Two of the head scientists at ECIM are OSU alumni and have strong connections with Dr. Jane Lubchenko and Dr. Bruce Menge at OSU.
Christina Murphy participated in an IE3 Global Internships internship at ECIM during the summer of 2007. During her time there, she focused on intertidal ecology. For her project, she specifically focused on a species of intertidal predatory crab, Acanthocyclus gayi.  Upon her return from her internship, Christina commented that “Before this internship I had planned to move directly into a PhD in fisheries ecology.  Now, I am applying for a Fulbright to return to Chile to continue my research before entering a graduate program.  In general, going abroad again gave me a chance to look at my life and values out of my normal context.  I have a much clearer perspective when I can look into the situation rather than out from it.” Now, Christina’s dream has come true.  She went on to say that “I want more than anything else to return to Chile on a Fulbright and begin a new project at the station.  I need the experience of complete integration and international research.  While I found the internship exceptionally valuable, I need more time to continue to become a part of the lab and of Chile.  Values such as patience will be essential in my return to graduate school and my large life dream of becoming a professor/researcher.” Christina gained a lot of practical skills in her internship such as adaptability, patience and understanding.  She describes how they relate to a career in science: “Let’s face it: in science, things rarely work out perfectly.  Adaptation is yet another tool of the trade.  I think that learning to adapt to a variety of situations has helped keep me thinking creatively and constantly problem solving.  Understanding is another valuable tool that I will use in my future.  Once again, a lesson that falls as a cornerstone of science.  The struggle for understanding will shape the rest of my professional career.  It is the wellspring for project ideas and research topics.”

University of Oregon Announces $3.1 Million in Scholarships, $750,000 for Internships in Developing Countries

The UO just announced $3.1 million in donations for international scholarships.  A full million is earmarked for internships, and 75% of that is dedicated to internships in developing countries in Africa,  Asia, and Latin America.

This news was just announced last Wednesday and you can read the full Daily Emerald Article here.

There are no details yet about when the promised funds will be available, but we will post any new information on our blog and send them out over our scholarships and UO email lists.

Congratulations, UO! The IE3 team is thrilled that international opportunities have received such generous support!

Another IE3 Fulbright recipient! Congratulations Austin Charron!

I am constantly impressed by what IE3 alumni go on to accomplish. An internship in and of itself is a challenge, but for many of our students it is one stepping stone in a long list of challenges and accomplishments.  Read the article below to find out more about Austin Charron. He’ll be spending the coming year in the Ukraine on a Fulbright Scholarship: 

http://pmr.uoregon.edu/current-uo-news/multimedia/multimedia-archive/a-world-of-understanding

Austin Charron came to the University of Oregon to study history. It wasn’t long, however, before he found himself immersed in the cultures, languages, politics, and geography of present-day Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

In fact, Charron, a 2008 graduate of the UO and the Robert Donald Clark Honors College, will spend next year on a Fulbright Scholarship in Simferopol — the capital of the Crimea — in Ukraine.

Throughout his time at the UO, the geography and Russian major blended academic disciplines with real world experience. He studied for five months in St. Pertersburg, Russia, where he polished his Russian-language skills.

“If you really want to get to know a people and a place, knowing the language is vital,” says Charron, from Corvallis. “I had the chance to get out of the city and see some places tourists don’t often go.”

But seeing the northwest corner of Russia wasn’t enough for Charron. Before graduating, he completed an IE3 Global Internship in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia, where he taught English to grade schoolers before trekking around Central Asia.

“Getting to see a place like that was amazing,” Charron says. “Some people might have a hard time pointing out Kyrgyzstan on a map. But it’s really important for me to go to these places, get to know people and see them first hand.”

Charron’s experiences on campus in Eugene and abroad played off each other, lending insights, understanding and context to his travels and his academic work. For his honors thesis he analyzed how the world’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence might affect similar de facto independent regions in the former Soviet Union. His undergraduate research closely relates to what he wants to study in Ukraine as part of the Fulbright program.

In Ukraine, Charron plans to study the Crimean separatist movement. In 1954 — just nine years after the Crimean peninsula hosted Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the Yalta Conference — the Soviet Union shifted control of the Crimean territory from Russia to Ukraine. When Ukraine gained independence, it retained control of Crimea, much to the consternation of many in the heavily Russian region who would prefer to be aligned with Moscow.

“The university broadened my horizons and exposed me to things I never would have known about otherwise,” Charron says. “I’ll always be hungry for experience.”

Dream. Pursue. Achieve. Life after IE3

by Ashley Blake, OSU, interned at ICAS/Mesoamerica in Costa Rica in 2006

Dream, pursue, achieve.

In school we’re given lots of buzz words to get us to “reach for the stars” and “fulfill our dreams.” Inspiring? Yes. Overwhelming? That too. Possibly a bit corny? Maybe…or maybe not.

Let me tell you a little bit about my story. After obtaining my Associates degree (basically your Baccore) in Bend, I entered OSU as a Media Communications major, a Music major and a Spanish minor. Lots of work for a new university student! After a tough first year, I realized that piano performance was not for me, so I dropped to a music minor and focused my energy on my other areas of study. I really needed a break from Corvallis, so I took the summer to study abroad in Spain to work on credits for my Spanish minor (scholarships, loans, and random side jobs for income — that can make it happen!). It was when I came back that I discovered the International Degree program. What an awesome opportunity: studying what you’re interested in! I couldn’t have asked for anything better. I shifted gears once again and instead of focusing on three different subjects — media, music and Spanish — I combined them. Over the next two years, I studied, traveled, did internships, and ended up graduating with two degrees (Media and International Studies), two minors (Music and Spanish), and an International Degree thesis “Music, Media and Success: A Costa Rican Perspective.”

While my academic pursuits were clear, my career ideas were vague. How the heck do you get a job doing what you love to do? The summer before my super senior year, I took an internship in Bend, Oregon with C3 Events, a festival and concert production company. One of their mottos: “Our world is glamorous, but our work is not” was something I learned to take to heart. I schlepped equipment, worked insane hours, and stressed over details like a madperson. But I also got to meet top-notch bands, work with tour managers, listen to music on the job, and gain professional skills in a way that no experience would ever have given me. After that summer, the owner of C3 offered me a job, and I ended up as an Events and Intern Manager with the company for two seasons after graduating.

Now, just two years after marching through Reser Stadium to be handed a piece of paper reflecting 5 years of work and a lifetime of opportunity, I am at a place in my career that I never even dreamed I would be. Last October I took a position with Ludus Tours, a company that does tours to international events including the Running of the Bulls in Spain, Oktoberfest in Munich and the Olympics, happening this year in Beijing. On a daily basis I apply media skills, communicate in foreign languages (since college I’ve learned some German and even a bit of Chinese!), use event management skills I learned at C3, and all around get to do what I love. This summer, I’ll be working in Spain, China and Germany, and my future with Ludus is bright and exciting.

So, we all know that college can be fun and it can be a drag, it can be tough and it can be rewarding. But ultimately, my bottom line is the same. Dream, pursue, achieve.

 

Medical Internships in India: A CFHI video

Take a five minute trip to India and watch the following video about the healthcare programs that CFHI offers there, including an interview with Alyssa Boesch, an IE3 public health intern on the Himalayan Rotation this past spring term.  Learn more about how to do a ten week medical rotation as a pre-med or pre-nursing student by visiting the IE3 position descripton. IE3 and CFHI also offer medically focused internships in Bolivia , Ecuador (Rural and Urban), Mexico, and South Africa.

IE3 At NAFSA

At the end of May the National NAFSA (Association of International Educators) conference was held in Washington D.C. and IE3 was there! As a presenter, our Africa director, Christopher Bennett, spoke on a panel focused on” Building and Sustaining a Quality International Internship Program.” An additional poster session focused on orientation and preparing students for international internships. We’re proud to be contributing to the body of knowledge at a national (and international) level!

Thursday with Dr. Borda

By Jessica Fowler, an OSU student who interned at CFHI La Paz, Bolivia during Winter term 2008

 

 

Oh how we love working Thursdays with Borda! Today was no exception. The city of El Alto was celebrating some sort of independence holiday so the clinic was absolutely dead. By that I mean there were only 30 people in the waiting room as opposed to 200. There was however a cesearan section planned, so Linh and I scrubbed up and headed to the surgery unit with Dr. Borda. Since he is in charge of getting the surgery underway with the local anesthesia, he had to have the room as he pleased, so he made a nurse bring in a radio so he could crank the toons. He never ceases to entertain us! He was dancing and singing the entire 40 mins it took him to sedate the women. It took so long since she was 42. I guess since it is harder to inject the drugs into her spinal cord. After about 15 needle attempts, we were finally ready for the incision. Everyone was especially careful since she was an older women and this was like a first pregnancy in the regard that she already had 7 kids, but not one since she was 30 years old! Luckily, she was also getting her tubes tied. After the baby was out, we followed the pediatrician to the “baby prep”area, where we helped ink the foot on the birth certificate, check the baby’s reflexs, clear its respiratory tract, and clean and dress it. Then, we got to hold and play with the baby girl for 40 mins until the mother was in the recovery room and could hold her baby.
Another thing that was really cool, but sad, was that another women had just delivered her baby, and it had congenital defects. So, for the first time I got to see a baby born with cleft lip and palate AND ectrodactylyl (”lobster claw” syndrome, where only the thumb is formed and the rest of the fingers are all together and unformed).

YOUNG BRAZILIAN PIANO PRODIGY TO PERFORM IN EUGENE

IE3 Global Internships has offered internship to university students at Students Helping Street Kids International (SHSKI) for over 10 years. For more information, see the position description

Priscilla Almeida Dantas: invited by University of Oregon piano professor Dr. Dossin to perform recitals in several Oregon cities; lives in poverty in Brazil, receives an academic scholarship partially funded by several Eugene/Springfield schools, and plans on being an exchange student at Churchill High School and a U of O piano major.

Fifteen-year-old Priscilla Dantas is an amazing young girl who, in spite of the poverty in which she lives in Recife, Brazil, has achieved notable levels of success as a pianist. Her father is a guard at a local music conservatory, and he arranged for his daughter to take free music lessons. She took her first piano lesson at age 9, was the subject of a Brazilian national television news report at the age of 11 and performed as the guest pianist with the Recife Symphonic Orchestra at the age of 14. See video of national television report of her June 2007 performance on YouTube

Three and a half years ago, Priscilla received an academic scholarship from Students Helping Street Kids International (SHSKI). Among those funding her scholarship are Churchill High School, Springfield High School, and Yolanda Elementary School & Centennial Elementary School of Springfield. Priscilla excels in academics and on the piano. Her goal is to be an international concert pianist.

Dr. Alexandre Dossin, Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Oregon, upon seeing DVDs of her performances, stated, that, in his nine years as a piano professor in the U.S., he has never seen a pianist of her age play as well as she does. Upon learning that Priscilla was planning on being an exchange student at Churchill High School in the 2010-11 school year, followed by applying to the University of Oregon School of Music and Dance, he invited her to perform a series of recitals in Oregon – Eugene, Albany, Corvallis and Roseburg.

Dr. Dossin further shared his opinion that Priscilla, indeed, has a “chance” of achieving her lofty goal of becoming an international concert pianist.

Every two years, there is a statewide piano competition held in Recife. During the last competition in 2007, when she was 14 years old, she was required to compete in the 17-20-year-old age group, due to her skill level. She won, as she has done every year that she has competed. In addition to performing Mozart with the Recife Symphonic Orchestra (she played without the music in front of her), she has performed numerous times in prestigious settings in Recife, and has even played on the beach in Rio de Janeiro on a very popular television program called Calderão do Hulck, which is seen by millions across Brazil.

The public will have several opportunities to see and hear Priscilla perform. There is no charge to attend one of her recitals, but donations are requested. Donations will be used to fund her future education in Eugene. Make checks payable to SHSKI, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Donations are fully tax deductible, and if you would like to have a tax receipt, provide your name and address so that SHSKI can mail you one.

Priscilla’s Recital Schedule

July 8 Metropolitan Rotary Club, Downtown Athletic Club, 999 Willamette St., Eugene. 6PM. Rotary members and guests only
July 12 First Congregational United Church of Christ, 4515 SW Hills Road, Corvallis. 7:30PM
July 13 Westminster Presbyterian Church, 777 Coburg Road, Eugene. 3PM
July 19 Reustle Vineyard, 960 Cal Henry Road, Roseburg. Wine club members only. 6PM
July 20 First United Methodist Church, 1376 Olive Street., Eugene. 4PM
July 27 St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 728 SW Ellsworth, Albany. 4PM

Students Helping Street Kids International (SHSKI) was founded by former Springfield School District counselor Bob Crites to provide an international community service project for American students, in which American students raise funds to provide academic scholarships for impoverished children in Brazil, thereby giving the recipients an opportunity to climb out of poverty. In this students-helping-students scholarship program both groups of students are greatly benefited. While the Brazilian scholarship recipients’ lives are profoundly changed, the American students also gain as their view of the world is broadened and they learn to experience the rewards of helping someone less fortunate than themselves.

Monkey Business in Rishikesh

blog excerpt by Heather Hodnett, intern on the CFHI Traditional Medicine Rotation in Dehra Dun, India

Another funny thing happened…I had an encounter with monkeys earier this morning! I was just sitting on my bed typing this morning (after I got to sleep in, which was awesome) when I heard a plastic bag rustling in the entry room behind me. I looked around the corner, and there were two mokeys helping themselves to our snacks! I kind of freaked out since I ‘ve heard monkeys will attack people if they feel threatened, so I shut the door to the bedroom. Then I realized that the monkeys would eat all of our snacks if I didn’t scare them out, so I opened the door and started swinging at them with my pajama pants (that’s all I could think of to use!) They slowly just grabbed what food they wanted and walked out the front door, so I totally felt stupid that I was crazily swinging my pants back and forth to scare them off! I shut – and locked – the screen door, only to open it a few minutes later to take a picture of the baby monkey that was still sitting outside finishing the banana that was supposed to be my breakfast. It was pretty funny in retrospect!

Success in South Africa

by Nicole Beaudoin, Film Intern in Cape Town, South Africa, Winter term 2008

Living and working in South Africa has been the greatest and most positive experience of my life so far, and was a much needed change in routine from what I had been experiencing at home. I’ve had the opportunity to experience first-hand the creative process and inner workings of a film shoot. This work experience will be invaluable as I graduate and start my career.
My first day at the internship site, I wore heels. After seeing the laid back attitude and casual attire of the office, I switched to flip flops for the remainder of my internship. Possibly the greatest thing about Stillking Films is the office space in which it is located- an historic building from 1876 with an uneven wood floors and a retro elevator featuring sliding metal grating. Complete with couches, an espresso machine, and a small staff who were closer to friends than co-workers, going to the office each day was delightful. Everyone at work was a coffee fiend, which made my gift of coffee beans from Café Umbria in Seattle a big hit. I am now also a coffee fiend, which is ironic if you consider that I never drank coffee previously when living in Seattle of all places. Everyone was a big smoker too; luckily I haven’t picked up that habit as well.
My official title at the office was “Production Secretary.” This, combined with my desk wielding status, was a contributing factor to experiencing a personal life moment to be remembered forever: on February 12, 2008 at roughly 5:22pm, one of the Production Assistants asked me if he could bring me some tea or coffee. My immediate thoughts were “Ha ha ha, I win! I’m totally going to make it in this industry!” and my answer was, “coffee, please!” If you are not coming from an entertainment industry background, the significance of this moment might be lost on you. Let’s just say that after last summer’s experience of daily fetching my three bosses coffee, fresh squeezed orange juice, and plain toasted bagels with peanut butter, getting served coffee was a proud moment for me and I drank every drop.
It was definitely exciting and enlightening to see first-hand the way things work in the film industry. Everything is waiting, waiting, waiting, and then GO. During the Toyota commercial shoot I worked on, I also had the opportunity to help manage casting-call backs. Casting is an incredibly crazy process, I believe over a thousand people were originally looked at. Most of the actors seemed to know each other and put up a “how you are doing, man, aren’t we great friends” attitude, even though they were ostensibly competing. The shoot ended up requiring a large cast for several short vignette sequences.
It required even more crew, and allowed me to thoroughly grasp how much I need to work on remembering people’s names and job titles. Having first-hand experience on a set also gave me some insights into things I would have overlooked as trivial prior to this experience. Such as catering, which is a lot more important than I originally thought. Hungry crew are grumpy crew, and those guys work hard and both need and thoroughly deserve a constant supply of good food. The on-set medic also dispensed vitamins to everyone each morning after breakfast, which I found interesting, and packets of glucose on the evening the shoot was to run past midnight, which I found bizarre but is apparently common practice. I remember Rudi, the producer at Stillking, saying “oh, is it glucose time?” as though it was no big deal.
Also no big deal in the entertainment industry is gossip. Everyone knows everyone and very openly discusses other people. It’s a very relaxed industry; I actually spent a good portion of one afternoon on set comparing the various crew members and picking which were the most physically attractive along with my boss, the casting coordinator, and one of the PAs. The First A.D. got a positive rating by consensus.
There are a few people I met in Cape Town that really stood out to me. One of them was Regina, the wonderful woman who came to the Stillking Offices to clean on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It was a little weird having someone clean the office during the day. I felt a little bourgeoisie, particularly when Regina would clear things off my desk, like empty coffee mugs. I soon got used to it, particularly after seeing the interactions between Regina and the rest of the office, who really valued her work, joked around with her, always made sure she stopped and ate lunch. Regina has an absolutely brilliant smile. It lights up her whole being and makes me feel wonderful. Morris, the eighty-five year old security guard in the building was delightful too.

It’s little moments of interaction with these people that I will remember about my experience in Cape Town. I shared my umbrella with a woman while waiting for the bus. Then I saw her the next day and we chatted about her family. The really nice bookstore owner in Obz who picked out a huge stack of books for me by South African authors, and then cleared a space for me to sit and look through them. The anarchist youth I sat next to on the mini-bus who was writing a “crash”-esque movie set in Cape Town who wondered why none of the Americans he had met were Bush supporters. The woman whose husband and daughter lived in Texas I regularly bought ice cream from until she got a different job.
Coming home was weird. Everything felt exactly the same and different at the same time. Maybe it was just me that was different. I’ve done a good job of avoiding the same routine I had before Cape Town and doing things a little differently.
Overall, I feel as though my time spent abroad developed both my patience/chillness and my maturity. I know I definitely want to be incredibly involved in the creative process when I am a filmmaker, and work on more than just the logistics and scheduling. I want a project to feel like “my” project, not in the sense that I own it exclusively, but that I am incredibly passionate about it. I am confident, knowing that I successfully handled the constant unfamiliarity of working and living in a foreign country, and can easily handle anything in my life back home as well.