Greeting
from Toronto, Canada! I thought my first blog might happen in NYC or some Asian
city in which place I imagined to take summer internship…there is always plan B
surprises you - I am here attending a wedding and enjoying a short break during
my intensive summer courses.
At
this time of last year, I was busy packing and bidding farewell to my
colleagues. Yet I still have no genuine feeling that one year has passed. Switching
from an office worker to a visiting scholar, now to a master student; Moving
from Beijing to Honolulu, now to NYC, my 2012-2013 was definitely full of
changes and challenges. I am a person used to plan everything ahead. I know
most of the time plans were meaningless, but it has been my habit and part of
my life. There were a lot of plans for my whole new life in NYC, and now it has
been half a year passed, a good time to review it – my post-APLP life in NYC!
1. Finish
9 credits (3 courses) in the spring semester – I did finish 9 credits which is
the minimum requirement for international students with waiver obtained
(generally 12 credits are minimum). With additional time, I attended lots of
lectures, events and seminars in and out of school. There are always
overwhelming resources in Columbia and NYC and most of them are free. Although
some of the lectures were hardly understandable, it was a nice try to combine
major study with variety of topics.
2. Something
more than campus life – NYC is full of museums, parks, parties etc, and new
comers deserve to experience every of them. However, I expected to be a New Yorker
with two identities: a full-time student as well as someone with certain social
responsibility. I wanted to penetrate to “normal” life more so I registered to
become a regular volunteer, taking part into community work and getting to know
people out of academia. I did seven-time volunteer works in four months and expect
to keep this pace in fall semester.
3. Improve
public speaking ability – I believe it is normality that people feel nervous
when giving public speech, but training can help remove fear. I have joined
Toastmasters (TM) since January, at first as a member, now with role as a
treasurer of our club. I cannot quantify how much progress I made, I would
rather recommend anyone wants to improve public speaking ability to give it a
try. TM is an international NGO with thousands of clubs all over the world. I
have heard some of my schoolmates who joined it years ago and could not find
obvious improvement so gave it up very quickly. In our club there were many one-time
guests as well. It might not work well to everybody and there is always various
excuses to skip regular club meetings, but I think persistence will make
difference.
4. Internship
and fellowship applications – In one word, they were all failed. This became
major frustration and challenge of my entire post-APLP life. I totally applied
six summer internships and two fellowships; however, none of them lasted to
shortlists. My post-graduate career aspiration is to international organizations,
especially in education development realm which is what I am learning. I
narrowed my internship application based on this goal, so I applied
organizations such as ADB, UNICEF etc. It was extremely competitive especially
for positions in HQ, but even more than my imagination. Some were never
replied, while some were rejected at very early stage. I guess because my
previous internship and career seeking experience were quite smooth, I did felt
hurt at this time. It is not the end, so no reason to be pessimistic since it
does not help at all. I got positive energy from many friends and professors
during retreat, and I am with confidence to resume next round applications.
5. Exercise
– Ironically, I started to go to gym since May, after finishing the whole spring
semester. It is three minutes’ walk from my residency to gym and Hudson Riverside
Park, but I never attempted to go there even once during study. There were no
morning classes so I used to get up very late which I am trying to overcome
now, and then I realized how many morning suns I have missed. One day I stepped
on the scales and was astonished by my weight! I gained 2.5 kg incredibly
within five months while my previous weight was kept since I was an
undergraduate. The stimulus for exercise was due to increased weight, however,
it has been upgraded to keep good health and life style as I found doing
evening run and stretch help sleep early and get up early.
All
in all, it has been a meaningful half year. I am trying to graduate next May so
there is only less than one year left. I think I will make some adjustment for
my next half a year and expect a fruitful 2014.
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| Spring to Summer |
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