Dear Participant,
Thanks for joining the 6th United Nations & International Organizations Roundtable Conversations & Reception last night.
As far as we can tell, the event was a great success. We heard some enthusiastic feedback from both, students and experts. From your initial feedback it seems that many of you found the small-group discussions particulary useful to interact with, learn from, and position yourself toward the attending experts.
Here is a LinkedIn post that thanks our guests and also includes their LinkedIn profiles. Feel free to interact with the post and also connect with experts, with whom you interacted with yesterday.
One thing you should think about is how to follow up with the experts. It might not be ideal if each of you sends a message saying "Hi, thanks for being there". I'm sure the experts would like to hear that but receing 100+ emails/messages where you need to reply, albeit briefly, is a big task.
Thus, I suggest:
- If someone at the table mentioned explicitly that they have an internship coming up or an opportunity, and you think you're qualified and interested, do reach out to them and stress your interest.
-
If they didn't mention this but you still want to follow up, you might want to think about a professional reason to connect. Did you talk about anything and you said you would share more information? Are you working with a student group and you want their input, participation, etc for an event, publication, ...? Are you working on a term paper, capstone report, etc. and it would make sense to interview them for this project? Obviously, this is not a comprehensive list, but ideally communication with the experts is centered on some specific professional reason. I'm sure you can be creative with this.
- Also think about timing: when is the best moment to reach out? Is it now, when it's fresh but some others might write to the expert too? In 1-2 weeks? Even later, when you a better 'reason' (see the previous bullet point)?
Apart from reaching out to the experts, I encourage you to take a few moments and think about key lessons from the conversations. What skills, opportunities, and other relevant aspects did the experts mention? What does that mean for your skill development, courses, extracurricular activities, internships, etc? A moment of reflection may help you to maximize the learning outcomes from the discussions.
In addition to our outstanding coordinator Laura Dankowski Mercado and our fantasic PAs Hanh Angela To, Himadri Ratnayake, Paloma Camelo and Hannah Barry, I'd also like to thank several of you for volunteering during the event. This was a large undertaking and we very much appreciate your help!
Here's to even more multilateral connections, careers, and opportunities.
Best wishes,
Daniel Naujoks
Director, International Organization & UN Studies Specialization
Faculty Director, UN Partnership Initiative
Columbia University | School of International and Public Affairs
|
