by Madison McHugh | Oct 18, 2017 | Internship Experiences, Undergraduate Students
My name is William Smith, and I am studying Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall. Over the summer, I had the opportunity to intern with Waterfront Development Corporation Limited, a crown corporation tasked with ensuring the prosperity of waterfront areas in my home province of Nova Scotia, Canada. Waterfront areas are extremely important to the coastal area of Nova Scotia, making their prosperity crucial to the success of the province’s tourism industry.
My responsibilities related primarily to the promotion and execution of the corporation’s major summer event, the 2017 RDV Tall Ships Regatta. The regatta is a 7,000-nautical-mile sailing race in which spectacular vessels, known as tall ships, make their way from country to country over the course of the summer. The regatta makes 10 stops in different ports across the province, representing major tourism opportunities for the host ports. The race is heavily promoted as a spectator event as the ships themselves are attractions in their own right. However, there are opportunities to actually sail aboard the majority of the ships visiting as well.
Due to the lack of publicity, I was specifically tasked with creating interest in the sailing opportunities in order to make the event successful as an experiential one as well as a spectating one. To meet the expectations of my tasks, I collaborated with television and newspaper professionals in order to promote the events and sailing opportunities to the general public. I also interacted with some of the crew members of the ships that appear in the regatta who provided me with more information to better promote the experiences that exist. I realized that while television and newspaper promotional activities were beneficial in increasing awareness for the general public, in order to be most effective, I also needed to identify and contact target groups, a task that took up much of my time over the summer.
The opportunity to assist in promoting my home province’s attractions, particularly through a large international event like the Tall Ships Regatta, was extremely rewarding as I recognized the value of bringing the event to fruition for the sake of the province’s success and gained valuable event-planning and management experience.
by Madison McHugh | Oct 4, 2017 | Graduate Students, Internship Experiences
My name is Isabel Deluna, and I am a Diplomacy student at Seton Hall. Switzerland was wonderful: being surrounded by multilateral organizations and diplomats from all over the world made my internship at the Dominican Republic Mission to the UN very interesting. Over the summer, a new Ambassador to the Dominican UN was chosen, and I spent much of my time preparing for his arrival by renewing and updating systems and archives.
At the mission, my primary responsibility was to prepare two types of reports for the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the Dominican Republic following UN meetings. We reported verbal notes for the United Nations to notify of activities or requests, as well as “oficio” reports, which were special reports sent to the Dominican Republic to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of mission developments and changes in events or circumstances. I prepared each report with the information provided and entered them into the record system. Everything at the mission must be put on their record, and the reports were vital to fulfilment of the mission. In addition, I frequently assisted during United Nations sessions and meetings with Dominican Republic participants, helping active participants and observers alike.
I believe the internship helped me to build my professional network. I met a great many Ambassadors and diplomats from multiple missions in Geneva who shared their experiences with me and made recommendations on strategies for my future career. I believe it is important to know the missions’ systems as well as how they manage their representation at the United Nations.
I attended sessions that related to a variety of important topics, including migration, human rights, and indigenous groups. The sessions had a great impact on me, because I was able to see the way diplomats interact with each other and express concern and defend certain topics for the benefit of their respective countries. I feel I gained an understanding of their knowledge and strategies, and thus I learned how to think strategically and manage my expression of my opinions. I believe I can apply much of what I learned in future classes and discussions.
Throughout my internship, I gained skills that will help me ascertain my position on topics of importance as well as maintain and defend it, which amplifies my ability to analyse problems and situations on diverse topics. I am very grateful I was given the opportunity to improve my skills in a direct, diplomatic setting, and I would especially recommend the internship to those who are interested in the UN!
