Working at PCIP Members Weekend

Two weeks ago, I had a chance to participate in Pacific Council's Members weekend as a membership and programs intern. For those of you who are not familiar with Pacific Council on International Policy, it is a non-profit membership based organization focused on policy issues of special resonance on and to the West Coast. Here's our website, where you can find all our members, events, news, and special trips.

Savilla (my supervisor), Alex (also an intern), and me

I started working as an intern three months ago. I have been working on many tasks, such as programs research-topics, speakers, tour sights,and etc, membership database management, recording transcription of programs and conferences, and some other office logistics. Through these duties I learned a lot about how the organization works, what is their true values and mission, how different departments work together. This is very important to get involved with a company, especially as an intern, because sometimes interns don't get opportunities to ask why. But by listening to the recordings and researches, I got the chance to know better who I'm working for and with.

Although I had a pretty good idea of PCIP, I wouldn't say it until I meet the very important component of our organization, members! The Members Weekend is a fantastic opportunity to get to know most of our members, who came to join us for lectures and receptions. The good thing of being a staff is that I had the opportunity to greet members as soon as they arrive and also by serving at the registration table. This sounds simple, but not to me as an Chinese native who has been in the U.S. for only 2 years. Not only I have to deal with language issues, I also need to be active and confident most of the time. This time it is not just about me, it's about the organization as a whole. Let me put this way, social at MW is not just about personal connection, it's just what a staff should do to make the event more comfortable to members.

On the other hand, I have to say that I did get some leverages of being a staff when communicating with the guests. I'm not a random person who wants to talk to them. I work at this organization and I can just say: hey, I'm new as a staff, just wanting to know members here. I think this is a perfect networking practice for me. Not only because there were so many high level people, but also because I have to talk to them. This is one of my duties.

The result is quite decent. I approached to the people I wanted to talk to. Most of them are experts on China since my area of focus is in East Asia security issues. Mr. Harry Harding was on one of our plenary sessions, so I got the chance to chat with him. When I told him I'm from Shanghai, he started to discuss with me about the Shanghai Expo. He told me that he wrote a blog piece saying why Shanghai Expo is a yesterday's fair. His opinions are always on the edge and challenging to tradition. I also talked to my professor Philip Seib. He's the head of USC Center on Public Diplomacy. We talked about our project on Expo and other things.

Besides working, our communication director was kind enough to let staff to attend some sessions. So besides communicating with members, I learned a lot from hearing speakers talking about the current hot issues, which I will discuss in my next blog. It is a little different from the lectures I normally see at school. It's more of a peer communication rather than teacher-student thing.

All in all, I think I'm lucky to attend the MW as a staff. Although I was exhausted at the end, I still think it's worthwhile for helping me building my career and in terms of knowledge gain.