Students from the International Relations Department of Samara State University

We are a group of students from the International Relations Department of Samara State University, Russian Federation, and we carried out an internship at the Istituto per l’Europa centro-orientale e balcanica (IECOB). During our month long stay at IECOB we were able to work as full members of the staff, enabling us to delve more deeply into the field of foreign affairs. Moreover, as we specialize in regional integration and international organizations, the internship was an excellent opportunity to study how European international organizations work.

Our internship lasted from June 14th, 2010 to July 12th, 2010. Our main task was to help plan the “Сervia Summer School 2010”, which took place in September, 2010. Our responsibilities were to receive application forms from the candidates, find NGOs located in the Balkan countries and look for potential participants of the Summer School, correspond with the candidates and professors involved and also some office work. Moreover, we had the opportunity to actively take part in the “Summer School – Intensive Course on Diversity Management”.  This course was very educational and fortunately matched our academic interests, so we thank IECOB for organizing such a good event.

But the internship did not consist solely of work and lectures. It gave us an excellent opportunity to communicate with people from different countries, and to share our knowledge and different points of view. It was thus inestimable and unforgettable and undoubtedly the knowledge and experience we gained will help us in our future careers. We would like to thank the professors and the entire staff for organizing the internship and express our hope for future collaboration.

Maria Zaichenko,
Maria Sheviakova,
from Samara State University