My internship experience at UNESCO/UNITWIN Network and UArctic Thematic Network on Teacher Education
I’m Sara Ihamäki and I was an intern at University of Lapland for three months from September to December 2020. I worked with both Teacher Education networks: the UArctic Thematic Network and UNESCO/UNITWIN Network. I’m Political Science Master student and I applied for the internship because I’m interested in educational issues and developments, and also project work.
During my internship I got a great insight of what is coordinating projects in international settings. Even though, diving into international Teacher Education networks with seven different on-going projects, was a lot at first, the networks were a unique opportunity to learn!
My tasks were e.g. planning and hosting events, writing news pieces, attending to meetings, helping with literature reviews and so on. Maybe the most memorable project has been Arctic Five project’s study course “Arctic Inclusive Education”, which is piloting on next January. It was interesting to see the process behind a study course, even though it was only a little piece of the three-year project that I got to be part of. I have also worked with almost all other on-going projects as well. It has been interesting to see all the big features and little details in the various projects.
The current situation with COVID-19 challenged the ways of working, which wasn’t only a bad thing, as it tested the creativity and enabled to try new traditions. But it’s a shame that I didn’t get to meet face-to-face any other colleagues outside of University of Lapland. It’s quite different to meet new people via online meetings than in real life. It would been lovely to get to know colleagues better in informal situations such as coffee breaks at workshops and conferences. But even so, I got to know many inspiring people with great minds!
We visited Ranua Zoo on Planning group's team day. It was also my first workday as an intern - quite easy start!Overall, the internship at University of Lapland gave me a lot of knowledge on several perspectives of education, and I’ve advanced my career skills e.g. language, project coordination, communications skills. University of Lapland and the networks has been great and easy environment to learn! Next, I will finish my Master’s degree and hopefully graduate on next spring.
I want to thank you all for the three months, you’re doing great work with the networks!
Sara Ihamäki
Comments