Internship

Started my internship with the Weatherhead Institute a few weeks ago, and so far it’s been pretty good. The Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) is the East Asian studies department here at Columbia. Much of the institute’s work is research at the graduate level, but they’re trying to promote awareness and cross-cultural learning on a number of different levels. Part of the reason I was recruited is to help serve as a liaison to my school, General Studies, and to help promote their offerings at the undergraduate level.
( A quick aside, Columbia University has four distinct undergraduate ‘schools’ under its umbrella, along with a number of graduate schools. The four are Columbia College, Barnard, the girls college which was started back with CC only accepted males, SEAS, which is the school of engineering, and GS, which is the school for ‘non-traditional’ or returning students. )
Anyways, the particular part of WEAI that I’m a part of is called ExEAS, for Expanding East Asian Studies. They put together these great course curriculums for use in other courses to teach people about different aspects of Asian cultures. So far I’ve been helping compile some usage reports from their website on which modules are being used the most.
Originally I thought I had a summer internship with Merrill Lynch lined up, but at the last minute it fell through. This one presented itself fairly unexpectedly, but it’s been very convenient, being located right here on campus, and it pays a little bit of money, which is quite helpful. It should also be a good reference when I’m interested in traveling to China to do business. Given a couple years of college language and the experience here, should be good.

I’ve included the main WEAI website, as well as the one for ExEAS. Go take a look at the undergraduate interns page on either one …
www.columbia.edu/cu/weai/
www.exeas.org/