My name is Daniela Uribe, and I am a senior student of Diplomacy and International Relations from Seton Hall University. I am from Colombia and moved to the United States four years ago to pursue my college education. As part of my learning experience at Seton Hall, I had the chance to intern at the Consulate of Colombia in New Jersey for seven months. The Consulate of Colombia is a government organization that represents and assists its nationals in international territories in order to provide legal assistance, notarize documents, and protect the interest of its citizens.

I decided I wanted to intern at the Colombian Consulate because the country was beginning a new development in its national security since the government’s negotiation and national referendum with the largest terrorist group in the territory, Las FARC. Since the Consulate represents the government of Colombia in the U.S., its role in this development was to organize, educate, and prepare nationals to participate in the referendum. Thanks to this call I was able to start interning at the consulate the week after I applied.

There was a lot of work to be done. As a Consular Intern, I assisted government officials in their consular assignments and assisted nationals with processes such as voting and serving as judges the day of the referendum. In addition, I contacted nationals and spoke effectively about the importance of participating in the referendum, including clarifying inaccurate information. One of the common questions was about viability to vote – whether one fulfulls the requirements set to vote. The National Registry provides ID numbers for nationals to vote in a specific place, and they needed to be informed of the location.

Another large role I played was educating people about the agreement. The agreement was 150 pages, and I needed to know it very well. If I had not studied Diplomacy and International Relations, I would have not been able to understand the type of language the document contained.

Dr. Tinker’s Public International Law course taught me about the importance of language in this type of document; how it could have different interpretations from different parties and how it becomes binding; how much responsibility each party has and the mechanisms of implementation. My class experience prepared me to raise questions and pose concerns during training times and participate in scholarly discussions during the preparation period.

After this experience, I was able to better understand the role and challenges of the consulates and government officials. They cannot advocate for a specific vote, but they must provide all the tools to inform the public to decide freely and support them throughout the process.

I enjoyed every second of the experience. I worked so hard, it felt like a full-time job, but I also learned so much about government and public diplomacy. We also faced challenges, too, during the vote: people showing propaganda, adding extra votes, or voting when they were not registered. It was very interesting being both central to the event and behind-the-scenes.

After the vote, I was selected to help tally the votes and upload the results for New Jersey. It was an honor and privilege to serve my country in this way.

I felt that this was my real job (even while unpaid!) in many ways, but the quality of learning I received from this experience made it so worthy.

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