#nyuwasserman

mackennaalvarez:

Volunteering Abroad: An Opportunity for Growth

As an education major and someone who is deeply passionate about serving others, volunteering was something I knew I wanted to do during my time abroad in Buenos Aires. I had worked with organizations in New York designed to address education inequality in the United States and was interested in learning more about similar organizations and movements taking place in Argentina. The staff at NYU BA was incredibly supportive and helped place me in a nearby organization dedicated to providing equal opportunities for all children. Servicio Social Agustiniano Gregorio Mendel offers several programs to children in the area, most of whom come from poorer Bolivian and Paraguayan immigrant families and lack the resources to get help with school related activities. To address this, SSA provides tutoring for children ages 7-12, after school games and other recreational activities, group reading to students, and more. I personally got the opportunity to work with children ages 2 to 4 Friday and Monday mornings and assisted them through games, storytelling, and group singing.

After the initial excitement of being hired to volunteer at SSA subsided, I began to doubt my abilities and question if I had made a mistake in volunteering. I wondered if I would be able to speak Spanish well enough to communicate with staff, if I had enough time to devote each week to this commitment, or even if it was my place to volunteer there to begin with. As a privileged American student, was it right to get involved in an organization I knew little about just for my own experience? However, upon arrival, the staff at SSA quickly quelled all of my fears and welcomed me into their organization with open arms. Playing with the toddlers there and watching them interact with one another reminded me of why I got into education in the first place and reaffirmed my passion for working with students. Observing children interact as growing human beings, whether it’s through comforting one another when one is crying, sharing toys and establishing friendships, or developing an identity that is uniquely their own, is truly a beautiful phenomenon that I was lucky enough to witness. What I thought would be an added stress that could take away from my time to study or explore, became a release and a way to escape the demands of my schoolwork. Through gaining hands-on experience with instructional practices and being forced to shed my inhibitions for the sake of being goofy, I grew not only as a future educator but as an individual personally struggling with shyness and insecurity. Those three hours I spent at SSA each morning, ones which I initially dreaded, ultimately became the thing I looked forward to the most.

pbnatnyu:

Building your career at NYU Prague

I came to Prague knowing absolutely nothing about the Czech Republic, short of what I was taught during the study abroad orientation held in November in Kimmel. It was the best decision I could’ve made for my sophomore spring. Not only did I meet new people and make new friends, but I also rekindled old friendships and became immersed in a culture I would otherwise not have experienced. I learned some Czech and sampled other parts of Europe. I also started to build my career and explore different career paths through an internship.

I’m currently an intern at CEE Bankwatch Network, an NGO that operates in Central Eastern Europe, monitoring energy projects in the area, their financiers, and their ecological impacts. Working at CEE Bankwatch as a Research and Campaigns Intern broadened my horizons. I’ve worked in government before– in fact, I spent my sophomore fall interning at the New York City Department of Buildings. I’ve interned at my father’s startup. I’ve worked as a researcher for an website. I even have a summer job as a lifeguard. But never have I experienced working for an NGO. I’m glad CEE Bankwatch opened up this pathway.

I found out about CEE Bankwatch through NYU, as it was listed as a non-credit internship. A week later, I found myself interviewing for the position. In February, I heard back and was asked when I could start. It’s a great environment to work in. The office is unassuming, on the third floor of a building in Prague 9, a 30 minute tram ride from where I live in Prague 2. It’s filled with plants and quite cozy. The furniture is all wooden, and there are about 15 employees sitting at their desks. It’s quite casual, people are super friendly, it’s international, and everyone wears jeans. I love it.

your-allegra-ever:

London is a city brimming over in culture. Whether that be defined by its citizens, its mouth-watering food, or its long history of theater and art, London is by far one of the most exciting cities in the world.

While studying abroad in London, I participated in the Tisch Screenwriting Program. This program not only directed me towards my own career goals, but fully immersed me in London’s fascinating and historic arts culture. While one of my classes was focused around writing a feature length screenplay of which I would cast and direct at the end of the program, the other two focused on the historic sites in London. In one of my classes, “Arts in London,” our weekly seminars were held in various museums around London. I was able to both learn as well as present to my class on breathtaking pieces of work such as Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers,” in The National Gallery, and the Rosetta Stone in The British Museum. In my other class, “Theater in London” I attended weekly plays and musicals at a variety of historic London theaters, such as Trafalger Studios and The Noel Coward Theatre. During the seminar portion of this class, I was able to both meet the actors from that week’s play, as well as talk with numerous renowned theater critics about their writing process.

Through this largely hands on curriculum, my eyes were opened to many important aspects of London. Through fully engrossing myself in the vibrant culture of London, I was able to further upon my career goals in that I gained valuable knowledge about London’s cultivation as well as greatly increasing my writing and public speaking skills.

yanqiudengatbuenosaires:

“¡Ni una menos!” “¡Nosotras paramos!”

On Wednesday March 8th, International Women’s Day, an estimated crowd of 250,000 strikers gathered in the Plaza de Mayo in Buenos Aires. Coming from all age groups and professions, they protest femicide and the criminalization of abortion, and demand, among other rights, equal pay, a secular state, and longer parental leave. This strike, rooted in the Ni Una Menos movement in Argentina, ended up taking place across more than 50 countries, and evolved to represent a movement of all the underprivileged and oppressed people in a world plagued by racism, machismo, xenophobia, capitalism, neo-colonialism, neo-imperialism and neo-liberalism. Even though I could not participate in the strike, by reading news reports, watching videos and discussing it in class, I felt a strong sense of responsibility as a privileged student to contribute to this revolution.

Living and studying in Buenos Aires this semester has ingrained in me a global awareness that I’ve always needed. Every day, whatever I learn in class about Latin America, I end up seeing corresponding phenomena in my daily live and my travels. I come to see how the struggles of Latin America can represent the struggles of Third World countries in general, and how those issues relate to the U.S and the rest of the world. In my volunteer work with the Argentine Catholic Commission of Migration, I research on Chinese immigrant communities in Buenos Aires and figure out ways for the foundation to help the immigrants integrate better into the society. At first, the task seemed at once exciting and daunting to me. As timid as I am, I must stay out of my comfort zone, reaching out and conducting interviews all the time. Nevertheless, the passion for contributing to a good cause drives me on, and the further I go, the more rewarding my work becomes.

Kangaroos and Soulmates

I’m starting this blog to document my semester abroad in Sydney, Australia. Little bit about myself: I am a sophomore Computer Science major at NYU studying at NYU’s Sydney abroad site for the Spring 2016 Semester.

Courses I will be taking this semester include:

Cognition for my psych minor,

Global Media: Sydney for my MCC minor,

Expressive Cultures: Film for my Core,

and a 4-credit Internship at Elcom.

Paris shooting

It is always heartbreaking to hear about tragedies in our world. With many of my friends studying in Paris, my school immediately reacted to the shootings by making sure everyone was accounted for, even here in Prague.