When I got back to Macalester, I felt so accomplished—and I’m confident about a future in diplomacy now.
—Gabriela Landeros Fernandez

By | Gabriela Landeros Fernandez ’15

When people asked me what I wanted to do in the future, I’d say diplomacy. But I didn’t really know what that meant—until my internship in the Mexican embassy in Belgium solidified everything I imagined and more. I got to do real work that bettered the relations between my country and the European Union.

For my study away program, I chose Internships in Francophone Europe (IFE). IFE helps you find an internship that fits your interests and experience, so you can intern at a biology research lab or a museum or a school. I said I was interested in international studies and Latin America, and the program director suggested the embassy from Mexico, where I’m from. I said, “Wait, really?” I’d dreamed of an internship like that.

With one internship spot left and four candidates, I landed in Belgium and went in to interview with the consulate. I’d done my research, but I was so nervous. He told me that most of the applicants were graduate students. Later, my director emailed me and said I got the internship.

For the first three weeks of the program I was a full-time student, taking courses on Belgian history and culture and the European Union (EU). Then, for four months, I was a full-time intern. There were five or six other interns, a mix of Mexicans and Belgians, all in the last year of their graduate programs. Many of them spoke Dutch, Spanish, French and English fluently (the embassy prefers fluency in all four languages for its interns—I’m fluent in Spanish and English and proficient in French).

I started mornings by meeting with the minister of justice, who represents Mexican citizens who need political support. He’d give me a research assignment and I’d do research online in different languages and then write up a two-page summary in Spanish by 3 p.m. Other times I’d translate letters into Spanish, or I’d attend presentations (usually in French) by EU diplomats on topics such as human rights and democracy.

I also drafted a weekly report that got sent back to Mexico’s Secretary of Exterior Services. Every week, I’d read the main newspapers in EU countries and glean what’s going on in the EU in human rights, then wrote a paragraph about each news item I thought should be included. Some days I’d hear something like, “Drop everything! The ambassador of Japan is coming!” Once the Secretary of State from Mexico traveled to Brussels. I loved being there every second that I could.

With my internship, I was able to put all I learned in the classroom into practice and see how the articles I read materialized into something I could use. I miss being able to go to work everyday. At the end of each day, I was so exhausted, but when I got back to Macalester, I felt so accomplished—and I’m confident about a future in diplomacy now.

January 31 2014

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