This semester I am interning for the Domestic Planning Team at the Seoul National University Institute for Global Social Responsibility (IGSR) (서울대학교 글로벌사회공헌단). During January and February I was working full time, and since the semester started I dedicate my Fridays to the internship. IGSR works on a variety of events and projects, but the biggest events are winter and summer volunteering programs both in Korea and abroad. I am interning for the domestic team so was not very involved in the planning of the trips abroad this winter, but I was fortunate to be able to participate in one of the two domestic programs.

The program in Gumi, a city in central Korea, took place from January 28-31. Before leaving we had a few meetings to go over the details and practice (the majority of the baseline preparation had already taken place before I arrived). During these meetings I got to meet the other students who were participating in the program and see some of the content that was going to be presented during the program. Participants in the program consisted of me, my manager, the head

Program schedule

of the domestic team, and 16 SNU student volunteers.

Gumi was chosen as the site for the program because it has historically relied on manufacturing and production to drive its economy, but in recent years the city has been going through economic troubles because a lot of manufacturing has been exported abroad. In addition, a major material that is produced in Gumi is carbon fibers, which are used for many things but many people do not know much about them. This winter,  IGSR partnered with a middle school in Gumi that selected 17 students to participate in a mentoring program with SNU students. The goal of the program was to provide mentoring to the middle students through group and individual mentoring sessions as well as group projects. Each middle school student was assigned a personal mentor who they spent a lot of time with over the four days through individual mentoring and group projects, and worked with other mentors as well during group mentoring. Some of the activities included education about carbon fibers, college and career mentoring, building salt-water powered cars, hands-on projects with carbon fibers, group bonding activities, and designing a school with features they would like to see. At the end of the program the students had a showcase where they presented their projects to family, friends, and teachers.

Because I was fairly new to the team and my Korean skills were not great at this point (I had only been in Korea for about two and a half weeks), I was not able to participate as one of the mentors, but I contributed where I could with preparing for and running the programs each day. I also was an unofficial photographer during the program, participated in many of the activities, and contributed to running the showcase on the last day of the program. I was grateful for the opportunity to participate hands-on in this program to contribute to IGSR in a meaningful way and see in person the product of what we worked on in the office. Through participating in the program I came to understand what IGSR does in a much more tangible way than just hearing about past programs and doing preparations at work. It was also a great way to get to know some of my coworkers and other SNU students as well as see a city in Korea outside of Seoul.