INTERNSHIP AT UNITED NATIONS

Internship at United Nations

Internship at United Nations

This paper is based on a personal statement regarding the internship at the United Nations in New York. But, before going into detail, I would first like to write about what internship actually is and why it is important. As the title of the paper suggest, taking internship at the United Nations will be a dream come true for me as I am aspiring to pursue a career in a world class organization such as the United Nations; where I will certainly get an experience of how does the United Nations carry out its daily routine tasks.

The United Nations

The United Nations is an organization that works to maintain international peace and security. A further goal of the UN is to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principles of equal rights and self-determination of people. They also strive to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems. Countries from every part of the world belong to the United Nations. The United Nations has achieved both success and failure in its work. It has been involved in resolving many small conflicts that may have developed into major wars. It has also been instrumental in helping people all over the world to gain freedom and a better way of life. But disagreements within its members and also financial problems limit the major goal of peacekeeping. By understanding what the United Nations was set up to do and looking at how it was designed to do it one can see that despite its noble efforts it has numerous problems.

What is an internship and why is it important

An internship is a short-term work experience that provides the opportunity to explore an area of career interest, an occupation, or an industry. Typically, internships last for a semester, but they can last up to a year. Internships are designed to reinforce academic theory with real-life experience (Callanan, 2006). The internship activity is supervised and is concurrent with coursework, and school credit is frequently awarded. Internships can be found outside of the intern's home country and can yield global work experience, sometimes with a total-immersion language-training opportunity. Intern work may include special projects, a sampling of activities in many disciplines required by the sponsoring organization (United Nations in this case), or, in some cases, intense activity within a particular discipline or department. Internships are commonly, but not necessarily, paid positions. Both for-profit and not-for-profit corporations as well as government agencies provide internship opportunities. An internship is sometimes called a practicum (DeLorenzo, 2007).

Although the goals are similar, it is important to distinguish internships from cooperative education, or co-ops. Cooperative education features the toggling of full-time academic work with full-time paid work experience in blocks of time, commonly six months. The co-op position is closely related to the student's major and is considered a formal part of the education process. Co-op positions are typically used in applied fields of study, such as engineering or the sciences ...