#mccullochcenter

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Spring Break is a great opportunity to solidify your summer plans with an international internship curated especially for MHC sophomores and juniors! If you’ve already completed Step 1 of the Lynk UAF application but still haven’t found an internships, check out the our Late-Breaking and Extended Opportunities internships @ http://bit.ly/1SDzQjg ! 

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The Future of Jobs The Duel Challenges of Globalization and Robotization

Join us this weekend, February 19-20th in Gamble Auditorium. Free and open to the public.

Over the last two decades, the globalization of production and labor markets has made jobs and working conditions increasingly more precarious around the world. Against this backdrop, we are now at the dawn of a technological revolution with potentially systemic impact on the production, jobs, and livelihoods. This conference brings together leading authorities from around the world to analyze the consequences of globalization and robotization for the jobs of the future.

see http://bit.ly/1KS0we4 for itinerary and more info

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Student Voices from Abroad Ally Madden ‘16

Friendships Solidified Abroad ~ Part One: Ode to Lyd

When I am asked how I liked my six months abroad in Italy, invariably my answer consists of how beautifully ancient the historical sites were, how delicious the food and wine, and how invigorating traveling within Italy and to other European countries was, but without a shadow of a doubt what became most important to me was not the places I saw, or the food I ate, but the people I met.

Last January as I was preparing for my international flight to Bologna, I could hardly contain my immense excitement for the whole new world that would be offered to me in Europe, but I was not quite sure what to expect. I anticipated becoming much better versed in the Italian language as well as learn about the country’s culture and history. What I ended up discovering, however, was an essential way in which I want to live my life by fostering within myself an unabashed curiosity not only with my surroundings, but the people who surrounded me.

By engaging in conversation with new people every day, I learned how to ask questions that facilitate conversation and that can lead to friendship. I learned how important it is to listen deeply to what people are telling me and how seriously life-changing that can be. By changing my perspective to always wanting to learn about others, I fostered some of the closest friendships in my life within a six month period.

One of the dearest friendships I cultivated while studying in Italy was actually with a girl from Berlin, Germany. Her name is Lydia  Müller (Lydi for short, but I further shorten it to Lyd). I met Lydia in our theatrical literature course at the University of Bologna entitled Letteratura Teatrale. The first day I entered the classroom, Lydi was the sole student in class. I walked in, a bit late might I add, to the professor’s indignation and Lydia’s relief at not being the one recipient of an Italian lecture. The next week Lydia and I met up for coffee (hot chocolate for her, since she greatly dislikes coffee) and she caught me up on the notes I had missed. I happened to be wearing my Harry Potter rugby style-shirt, which I like to call my Quidditch shirt. We immediately bonded when she commented upon it and we disclosed to each other that we both belong in Hufflepuff house. As Lydia and I learned more about one another, we shared where we were each from and she told me she was working on her English! We agreed that we could each teach one another little bits of our own languages. I pulled out my handy-dandy journal and Lyd jotted down some simple German phrases. One I use all the time, even today: ‘Gut, gut, alles gut,’ sounds just as we would say ‘Good, good, all is good,’ in English. Another term: ‘Jagenau,’ means ‘Yes, true’!

Overall, I have been blessed to see how similar and different Lydia's upbringing and my own have been.  As the two of us learned about Italy, we simultaneously learned about one another’s cultures. This deep friendship was a first-hand example for me of how multi-cultural Europe is and how much you can gain by simply hearing someone’s story.

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International Internship Profile: Julia Godinez -  A Gringa from Gringolanida?

This summer I had the extraordinary privilege of traveling to Rapa Nui, commonly known as Easter Island for an internship. The purpose of the internship was to work with local high school students during their two week winter break doing noninvasive archeological outreach. The program teaches local students about conservation methods, and educates them about their own island because the local school system does not. The entire internship would also be spent camping in tents.

To be honest, neither the idea of working with high schoolers nor camping for a month scared me, but I was concerned about my Spanish speaking ability. I was surprisingly calm when I first arrived at the airport that looked like the island from the show Lost. It could have been my exhaustion from traveling for twenty three hours, or simply excitement, but I had no problem adjusting to the island culture right away. Later I would learn that this easy adjustment came from the people I met, not my personal ability.

It is important to mention that the entire island is only 163 square kilometres, and that Rapa Nui is one of the world's most isolated inhabited islands on earth. Despite that absolute isolation of the island, it is still visited by more than 50,000 tourists a year, which is almost 11 times bigger than the total population of the island. Knowing all this before arriving, I doubted that I would be able to have a non-touristy and authentic experience; I could not have been more wrong.

The people of the island were more welcoming that I ever could have fathomed. All of the people that became my friends, including my students were more than happy to share their culture, food and personal history with me. In my eyes, Rapa Nui has the absolutely unique combination of Polynesian warmth and hospitality coupled with the South American sense of family that welcomes people as actual members of their family. It was so heartwarming to be embraced by everyone I encountered especially since I was simply a “gringa from Gringolandia”.

The authenticity of all the friendships I made, and sleeping alone in a tent every night gave me ample time for self reflection and gratitude. I am still processing the experiences that I had this summer. With the self reflection that I have had, I can most certainly can say that the friendships and bonds I made this summer exposed me to an entirely new culture, which accepted me despite all our differences. This is what I cherish the most.

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This Thursday, Sept. 24th at 4:15 in Dwight 101, we are hosting a program on Digital Stories of Courage. Come join us if you are interested in using digital storytelling to reflect on your experiences abroad, tell stories of courage and advocate for social change. The panel will include key figures in the field of digital storytelling, who are coming to the area for an international conference.