{"id":48619,"date":"2017-10-11T12:02:43","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T19:02:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=48619"},"modified":"2017-10-13T14:34:41","modified_gmt":"2017-10-13T21:34:41","slug":"miranda-henry-study-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/miranda-henry-study-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"From ‘not sure’ to New Zealand: NAU senior finds her passion during internship halfway around the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Heidi Toth<\/strong>
\nNAU Communications<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

In May, Miranda Henry<\/strong> finished her junior year at Northern Arizona University. She was an international relations major but hadn\u2019t narrowed down yet just what that career would look like.<\/p>\n

Three months and about 8,000 miles later, she has an answer. After an emergency management internship in New Zealand\u2014an internship that allowed her to work alongside other interns as well as government and business officials\u2014she\u2019s already looking for ways to relocate and start planning for island emergencies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like this is so cheesy, because it\u2019s like a coming of age thing, but I realized what I want to do. I want to do this,\u201d said Henry, who is from Orange County, California. \u201cInternational relations is fairly broad, and now I know what I want to specialize in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Getting a global education<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every year a few hundred NAU students head out into the world for a summer or semester study abroad or a weeklong intensive international experience geared to their majors. This fall, 150 students will study abroad at one of NAU\u2019s partner universities, a slight increase from a year ago, said Daniel Palm<\/strong>, executive director of the Center for International Education (CIE). The number of international students who come to NAU soared this year, to 148 in fall 2017 from 111 in fall 2016.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe transformational opportunities that study abroad provides are crucial in preparing NAU graduates to navigate an increasingly interconnected and global environment,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing globally competent is a prerequisite for success in the 21st<\/sup> century.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Henry, the CIE was her gateway to this experience. CIE staff told her about Massey University\u2019s Disaster Risk and Emergency Management National Expedition and Internship, though it was not a partner university. Additionally, Henry\u2019s best friend is from New Zealand, so she was already interested in checking out the country. She applied, and somewhat to her surprise, she was accepted.<\/p>\n

In June she left for Wellington, the capital of New Zealand, spending a week touring the country with her friend before the internship began. She and 10 other interns spent the first two weeks again touring the country, this time looking at different landscapes and identifying hazards, discussing what could potentially go wrong in each environment and ways to adequately respond to such events.<\/p>\n

Back in Wellington, the 11 were assigned to different departments. Henry worked with the Wellington City Council\u2019s legal and risk department business continuity team and emergency management team along with two other interns. The rest were with the Ministry of Health, fire and police departments or nongovernmental organizations that respond to emergencies.<\/p>\n

The experience did exactly what internships should do: help Henry gain experience and make decisions about her future career. Janea Byrne<\/strong>, NAU\u2019s internship coordinator, said the applied experience, skills and professional connections students gain during internships will help them as they\u2019re looking for jobs after graduation. About half of NAU undergraduates report participating in an internship during their time here.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor college students, there is no better way to test drive careers of interest than to experience them first-hand through an internship,\u201d Byrne said.<\/p>\n

\"NAU<\/a>
Henry spent time exploring the country before her program started and spent two weeks on an intense road trip through the country with other interns, learning how disasters could affect New Zealand.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A day in the life<\/strong><\/p>\n

Henry had basically one job as an intern for the Wellington City Council: write an emergency plan from ground zero that, with tweaks as needed, would become the city\u2019s emergency plan.<\/p>\n

She was busy, to say the least.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey apparently have a lot of faith in their interns,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t think it would actually be used, but they are planning on using it and will reform it if needed, which is really cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henry started with meetings and doing research, visiting with people in emergency management and business continuity, researching New Zealand\u2019s laws and what other countries do. Her plan focused on cordon management: how to keep people out of dangerous areas during an emergency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems really simple on paper\u2014like, literally you just put a fence up,\u201d she said. \u201cBut if it\u2019s in a city and all these buildings collapse, you could be infringing on people\u2019s civil liberties if you do that. People can\u2019t go into their houses or businesses; they can\u2019t earn their livelihood. There\u2019s a lot of different social, environmental and economic impacts you have to take into account when designing a plan like this.<\/p>\n

After doing research, she wrote, meeting frequently with her supervisor for critiques and ideas and going through multiple drafts of the plan, paying attention to all the different issues that could arise. She kept in mind the different types of emergencies New Zealand could face, the variances between the numbers of affected people and other variables that could arise in an emergency that required cordon management.<\/p>\n

Once the plan was written and approved, she had to sell it to people. The final weeks of her internship were once again spent in meetings, visiting with emergency management and government personnel who would be responsible for carrying out the plan in an emergency.<\/p>\n

Advice<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\"NAU<\/a>
Henry lived and worked with 10 other interns\u2014nine Americans, one Canadian\u2014during her study abroad internship.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Studying abroad is a valuable experience for students of any major. For students who want careers in international relations, it\u2019s almost a necessity.<\/p>\n

New Zealand was Henry\u2019s second study abroad; she also spent a semester in Prague through an official NAU program. Between the two experiences, she had thoughts for other students considering making the trip.<\/p>\n

The biggest was simply not to be scared, or least don\u2019t not go because of fear. Henry knew nothing about emergency management when she accepted the internship. She also was the youngest of the 11 interns. Her peers there were military veterans, former Foreign Service officers, even a former Venezuelan diplomat.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was terrified, but NAU provides a solid educational foundation to at least act like you know what you\u2019re doing,\u201d she said, adding the \u201cknowing what you\u2019re doing\u201d phase will come.<\/p>\n

She also encouraged students, particularly others in international relations or a similarly broad degree, to find a niche.<\/p>\n

Oh, and remember you\u2019re an intern when talking with other people, a lesson Henry learned during a meeting with a government official.<\/p>\n

\u201cI only had half an hour to explain my emergency plan, and he kept interrupting me, so I said, \u2018Stop talking or leave, so I\u2019m not wasting my time,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cIt turned out he was one of the head people in the New Zealand government, which I didn\u2019t realize. He ended up liking me, though, but things kind of got to my head a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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By Heidi Toth NAU Communications In May, Miranda Henry finished her junior year at Northern Arizona University. She was an international relations major but hadn\u2019t narrowed down yet just what that career would look like. Three months and about 8,000 miles later, she has an answer. After an emergency management internship in New Zealand\u2014an internship…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":48623,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[62,1729,767,149],"class_list":["post-48619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community","tag-center-for-international-education","tag-international-relations","tag-internships","tag-study-abroad"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}