Internship Abroad Helps Student Find New Directions and Connections to Get There
- Feb 6, 2019
Studying abroad impacts students in many ways. For international relations junior Ethan Jewell, his first experience abroad put him on a new path and paved the way for more international opportunities – including five study abroad programs in all.
In summer 2017, he participated in an internship with the U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea. After his internship, he went on two more programs in South Korea to improve his fluency in Korean, including the Critical Language Scholarship Program, a U.S. Department of State program for American college students to intensively learn languages critical to national security and economic prosperity. Last fall, he enrolled in a Chinese Language program in Beijing and is currently in Taiwan for the Spring semester.
His dream to work in the U.S. Foreign Service was his motivation.
Jewell started at UT majoring in engineering, but the summer after his freshman year, he realized he had a passion for something else.
“I realized that I did not enjoy engineering,” Jewell said. “That’s when I basically soul-searched one day. I got on my computer and I was like, alright, I'm going to figure out what I'm going to do, and that's going to be something else than what I'm doing right now.”
That’s when he discovered the personal blog of a foreign services officer and was fascinated with the idea of living abroad and representing U.S. interests. “Reading through it, I was like, this is absolutely the kind of life I would like to live,” he said. “Every single day it's like a new adventure.”
He then met the Diplomat in Residence at UT and found out about the U.S. Department of State Student Internship Program. He knew the program was competitive. He applied and was accepted.
After discovering his newfound passion, Jewell changed his major to international relations with a focus in international security in East Asia. Jewell said his interest in the region grew because of the Korean international students he met at UT, added with the growing significance of relations between North Korea and the U.S.
During his internship in Seoul, Jewell realized the importance of languages in the foreign service, which is why he participated in an Intensive Korean Language Program the following semester at Hanyang University in Seoul.
“Language learning is literally essential to what they do in the foreign service. And when I was working in Seoul it was incredibly apparent,” he added. “Because not everyone in the world speaks English. You have to have a particular situation in which you just have to speak another language.”
While he was in South Korea, he realized that Chinese is also a language of growing significance and decided his next step was to study in Beijing.
“I decided that if there's another language I'm going to learn that's relevant today, it's probably Chinese,” Jewell said.
During his internship, Jewell also gained valuable connections that led to more opportunities abroad.
“After I got the first internship at the embassy, literally everything else that came after that was because of the connections I made during that internship,” Jewell said. “That is a good enough reason, I think, for people to go abroad.”
Through studying abroad, Jewell has been able to broaden his perspectives of the world and gave him a more realistic view of international events. For example, being in South Korea at a time when North Korea was frequently in the media gave him a personal stake on the issue.
“Three months ago, I was sitting in my house saying this is what I wanted to do, and here I am.”
Being abroad also led him to experience some of the best moments of his life. As an intern at the U.S. Embassy, Jewell got the chance to have lunch with the ambassador of the United States to South Korea at that time. “I got to go to his house,” he said. “Three months ago, I was sitting in my house saying this is what I wanted to do, and here I am.”
Jewell also recalled the time his Korean friends taught him how to play a traditional instrument. “I have some friends who are members of a state-sponsored traditional Korean music band. They invited me down to their studio where they practiced, and we basically just had a night of them teaching me how to play,” Jewell said.
“It was literally me and two other people from the program, and we got a personal performance from them,” he added. “It was probably one of the best experiences I've had in Korea.”
All of his experiences abroad have been made possible through a number of scholarships, including the Critical Language Scholarship, which was sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. His internship in South Korea was funded by the Freeman Asia grant. Jewell also received a Boren Scholarship, which is an initiative of the National Security Education program.
“Maybe you don't have the money now, but there are so many opportunities out there."
Jewell said his study abroad program coordinator Thuy Nguyen was a great resource in helping him find these scholarships. “She hooked me up with people who have gotten scholarships before, who could give me their advice and she told me about them in the first place,” he said. “I pretty much got everything from her. She stuck with it all the way through and has been very supportive.”
Jewell’s piece of advice for students interested in studying abroad is that funding is available if you take your applications seriously. “Maybe you don't have the money now, but there are so many opportunities out there,” he said. “There's so much money available, especially if where you want to go is less traveled.”
He also reminded students that although living abroad will expose you to cultural barriers, overcoming those challenges is part of the rewarding experience.
“It should be part of the experience and not a negative,” Jewell said. “You don't go abroad for it to be exactly the same as Austin, Texas. You can't expect it to be.”
