How did you come to participate in the program?
I went to the UNU Internship Presentation when I was in my fourth year in the undergraduate program, and I applied for the program there. I was interested in water treatment, and the institute that I could apply for also happened to be the Institute for Water, Environment, and Health. After I passed the interview, I communicated with my senior researcher at UNU Canada using email to discuss the details about my internship plan, but I remember thinking that I might not be accepted because we could not get in touch easily due to the time difference.
How was the research environment of UNU-INWEH Canada?
Also, how was your senior researcher, Dr. Nidhi Nagabhatla?
UNU-INWEH conducts water environment and health related researches. When you work as an ELE (Embedded Learning Experience) Scholar, you can learn how they work by helping the senior researcher or learn about the details about the topic quite deeply. Especially, they offered an online course for interns to learn about the concept of water security, and it was quite helpful in understanding the concept. Also, the most impressive aspect of the internship was that I was able to find a senior researcher and have an open-door meeting immediately when there was something I did not know about while working or when I had a good idea.
Nidhi, my senior researcher, made good efforts to provide interns, including me, with various opportunities. While I was there, I had a chance to go to the International Climate Conference in Toronto with support provided by an institution and to a lecture that my senior researcher gave at a university and encouraged interns to come.
Could you describe your major activities such as how you became the coauthor of a chapter of the book, 《Water and Food Security Crisis Influencing Human Mobility Patterns: A Comprehensive Overview》?
My senior researcher gave me a chance to write a chapter in the book. My job at the time was to explain a mechanism using the examples showing the relationship between the water and food crisis and human migration, and I wrote a manuscript based on what I have studied so far. I also did a statistical analysis with 50 years’ worth climate data that I received from a professor from the Congo while conducting the project, and I used that analysis in another thesis (to be published next year) that suggests a water security indicator.
Could you describe how GIST helped your achievement?
First of all, I think that students can have this valuable experience through as an intern at an international organizations thanks to GIST for developing this UNU Internship Program. I would like to say that I am truly grateful to the teachers and the director of the International Environmental Research Institute. It would have been difficult without the school’s help.
I believe that GIST does not spare any support in making it possible for students to have the experiences that they cannot easily have. That is the biggest advantage of GIST. Thanks to GIST’s support, I was able to have a variety of experiences, including a summer semester at Berkeley, internship at a private company, and the UNU Internship Program.
Please give a word to students who wish to apply to the GIST-UNU Internship Program in the future.
Currently, I understand that GIST is mainly sending interns to UNU-INWEH. If you go to their website, you can find out the details about the research conducted by the institution, and you can ask senior students who have already been there. I would like to say that students should think about whether they are really interested in the research in this field before they apply. The junior students who are interested in the internship program ask me whether they should be very fluent in English. Of course, it helps to be fluent in English, but if you go and use English every day and get along with others, you will definitely feel better every day. Before I went there, I had a lot of conversations with the teachers of the English Clinic to prepare myself, and I think that really helped.
