January Undergraduate Student of the Month
Laura Garvie
Background:
1) What major(s), minors, and/or certificates you are working on at UMD?
Majors: Geographical Sciences – Development and Sustainability track
Minors: French, Global Poverty
2) What are your interests within your program(s)?
I learned French as a child in Immersion schools and today, am President of Le Cercle des Etudiants Frocophones et Francophiles (the French club on campus). I love writing and translation work but really found my passion in the school of geographical sciences where I discovered the relations between people and the natural world and my desire to study human and environmental process. Geog332 was a great class for me this past semester because it focused on my interests in contemporary slavery, income inequality and managing scarce resources.
3) What previous jobs, internships, and volunteer experience have you had?
Translator for USAID/Senegal
Lab assistant for the Department of Geographical Sciences
Volunteer for the American Field Service. (I studied abroad in France for one year in high school with this program and have been volunteering for them ever since).
Tour Guide at an art museum in Gray, France
Hostess at Mosaic Cuisine & Café (a French restaurant in Rockville)
4) Where you are from?
Rockville, Maryland
Internship: (Spring 2015)
1) Where you are interning?
Department of State, Foreign Service Institute (FSI) – this is where State Department’s Foreign Service employees are prepared for overseas assignments.
2) What are your internship responsibilities?
I expect to help Americans in distress abroad and in transition. I will surely do some routine administrative work but will look for the chance to try something new and leave my mark on the office.
3) What project(s) are you working on or contributing to?
I don’t know yet what projects I will be working specifically with but I will be in the Transition Center, one unit within the five schools of FSI. They train, counsel and other assist Department of State employees to prepare them for life abroad. They specifically assist personnel returning from high-threat assignments through the High Stress Assignment Out-brief Program.
4) How is the internship experience relevant to your studies in Geographical Sciences?
My internship is relevant to Geographical Sciences because U.S Government employees will be dealing with changes that come along with differences in physical and human geography when they move abroad.
5) What are your career goals after your graduate?
I am hoping to earn my Masters of Science through the combined BS/MS program and then volunteer with the Peace Corps. I would like to get a job with the Government and one day open my own hostel abroad. More than anything, my goal is to be happy and feel good about wherever my life goes.