The Intern Seminar Series:
This project aims in the widest sense to "introduce higher social topics into the interns' conversation." The project will bring together all the interns at Southern DataStream in a weekly meeting where one person will provide a PowerPoint presentation on aspects of their own internship projects and their own background. Whilst the technical and scientific aspects of their internships will feature, the impetus will be on their experience as interns based on their cultural and social backgrounds.
The major aims of the project are:
- To enhance awareness amongst the interns of each others' cultural, social and educational backgrounds
- To provide a knowledge of other interns' projects and enhance the understanding of Southern DataStream as a whole
- To help enable interns to view themselves as an integral part of the mechanisms of Southern DataStream
- To offer experience of PowerPoint presentations in English; a vital skill for future employment in many spheres, in a language which is not the mother tongue of the vast majority of interns
- To create an alternative picture of the interns' own familiarity at Southern DataStream
- To stimulate valuable discourse and debate amongst the interns
The meetings will take place every Monday at the Dallas Townsend Agricultural Center conference room in LaBelle at lunchtime if possible, depending on the conference room's availability on that day. Whenever possible the person who is next to finish their internship will present their seminar. The advantage of doing so is that it will provide the leaving intern with an opportunity to reflect on their time here at Southern DataStream. Additionally it will utilize to the fullest extent the experience of the individual's internship.
The presentations should
include:
-
Their general educational and
cultural background- i.e. about their home country, themselves, their university
and other aspects of their lives
-
A description of their individual
internships
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Their internships linked with
themselves: Their careers goals, their hopes for the future and any other
aspects which they would like to bring up
-
The differences between their
home country and the United States- in work…
-
…and culturally
-
How their internship could help
their home country- what can their home country learn from the American system?
-
What can America learn from their
home country’s system?
-
How the experiences of home and
America can benefit each other
The timetable for the interns' presentations can be found on the hyperlink below. This is a valuable exercise which will hopefully indeed bring "higher social topics into the interns' conversation".