Ben Ballard ’16, a double major in international relations and history, spent his summer in Tangier, Morocco at Librairie Les Insolites. While there, he did research for his CISLA senior integrative project, researching social movements in Morocco. He interviewed people, attended protests and kept track of the political activity in the city of Tangier and the rest of Morocco.
“It would be ridiculous for me, as a white American guy going to Morocco for three months, to think that I could come back and start dictating what Moroccan activists should be doing. A fresh pair of eyes is all I can offer,” Ballard said. He reflected, “Tangier was incredible. It was the type of place where when you said hello to someone, you had to say hello in four different languages to determine what they spoke. I lived with five Moroccan graduate students and one illegal immigrant from Cameroon. Traveling around Morocco was pretty incredible; each city is its own microcosm.”
One of Ballard’s most eye-opening experiences came when he was detained while traveling in the countryside. Local military police intimidated and threatened his friend, a woman, for traveling with an American man. They were able to get out of the situation with the help of a sympathetic state official.
Ballard noted that this experience gave him insight into how people can abuse the Moroccan legal system for their own gains. “This is [part of] my area of study,” said Ballard. This CISLA scholar hopes to find opportunities to continue studying in Morocco and its social movements after he graduates from Conn.
Another CISLA scholar, Joey Blair ’16, a double major in French and Molecular Biology, spent his summer at the Marie Curie Institute, one of France’s premiere teaching facilities for molecular biology research. While in Paris, Blair stayed with a host family, arranged by CISLA. Over the summer, he worked mainly with Ph.D. students, an experience which he said, “was really intense, but I learned so much….Once I started working at the Curie Institute, everything great in my summer came through work because it’s a great institution, even though the people I was working with were older than me.”
Early in his internship, he was invited to the institute’s retreat in southern France. He said that it was “fun, everyone was talking with everyone, it was really a good time.” He also had the opportunity to ride in a plane with one of his coworker’s friends. Blair said, “We went up in this plane and flew all around just south of Paris and [flew over some of] the little castles they have, the châteaux.” The internship made him realize that he’s “not one for research.” In the future, he hopes to go to medical school.
International Relations and French double major, Julia Enos ’16, is a student from Sweden. She described her internship at the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland, as being an “amazing experience, so interesting and eye-opening.” She enjoyed being able to see firsthand how the United Nations system operates.
For her internship, Enos conducted research, drafted statements and sat in on two different conferences sponsored by the Office. As part of sitting in on the conferences, she had to manage the list of NGOs that were signed up to speak. She noted that it was a “very chaotic” task because the list often changed whenever NGO representatives missed their turn. She would often have to interact with the people who missed their chance to speak. “Because I was an intern, people would blame me for their own mistakes. People fly from across the world just to make their statement, and I felt really bad [that they missed their turn]. It was really hard for me. [Once] this NGO ran up and grabbed the microphone to make their statement after the president [passed their name] in the list,” said Enos.
Enos is currently applying for a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant position in France, as well as positions in various organizations in Europe. In the future, she hopes to go to graduate school in France, the United Kingdom or the United States.
Vlad Chlouba ’16, a double major in International Relations and economics with a minor in German studies, is a student from the Czech Republic. This past summer, he worked at the United Nations Information Center, located in Windhoek, Namibia. During the Spring 2014 semester, Chlouba studied in Namibia. Some of Chlouba’s tasks included planning events and giving information and news about the United Nations to the media.
He also went to local schools to teach kids about the United Nations. “The schools have kind of limited resources, so they like it when the United Nations helps them out with teaching different things,” said Chlouba. He found the experience of visiting Namibian schools to be an eye-opening experience. Chlouba said that, “In the poor areas, you come to the school, and the school doesn’t necessarily have buildings. You see huge tents, for example.”
Chlouba said that doing his internship through CISLA enabled him to be more appealing to the organizations he applied to, and he thinks that his experience was a success overall. “You’re trying to see what the job’s about and ideally at the end of the internship know this is something you want to do.” After graduation, he hopes to get a Ph.D. in political science with a focus on political economy. •
