KOREA FOUNDATION

KF Global Challenger Internship Letter

I arrived in Salzburg, Austria, on June 18. My work began the next day, as the Board of Directors Weekend of the Salzburg Global Seminar (SGS) opened that very week. The Board of Directors Weekend is held two to three times a year, and its Salzburg meeting is the largest event with over 100 people attending. I played a supporting role for the meeting together with other interns. I assisted in preparing and arranging the event venues, receiving and guiding visitors, and delivering microphones to questioners during the question and answer sessions during the lectures.
   SGS’s activities are roughly divided into four parts— finance and administration, programs, development, and communications. The Finance & Admin team handles overall financial and administrative affairs of the seminar and personnel matters. The Program team plans and operates quarterly sessions, the Salzburg Academy, and seminars. The Development team carries out assignments related to the SGS Board of Directors, fund-raising, and exchange and cooperation. The Communications team is responsible for SGS publicity, management of fellows, strategies, reports, and publication.
   As a program intern, I take part in research on SGS sessions and future directions for the seminar. The research covers a wide spectrum of subjects, and sometimes the interns have to deal with topics that are not related to their major subjects, previous careers, or background knowledge. If an intern personally finds an appealing subject and wants to join in its research, it is good for him or her to directly express his or her desire to the program director or manager. Having majored in cultural policy and being greatly interested in culture and arts projects of SGS, I proposed to offer my assistance for research in those fields to the director of the related program, and I was able to conduct a study of examples and potential participants for next year’s projects.
   The Salzburg Global Day celebration that takes place every year on July 15 in commemoration of the first day of the first SGS program was a memorable occasion. It was a nice summer festival attended by a good many fellows, sponsors, regional officers, and staff members from SGS headquarters, where the fellows and artists networked and enjoyed a variety of performances. The Salzburg Academy on Media and Global Change for university students majoring in journalism was also impressive. I was able to find great satisfaction in my work through all the diverse experiences I had.

KF Think Tank Internship Salzburg Global Seminar in Austria Youngji Kwon

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