Overseas orientation

Global studies department sends 27 interns out after a week of training

While some students went home over winter break, others, such as the global studies interns, underwent orientation week Jan. 4-9, days before leaving the country for the spring semester.

prep — The director of global studies internships assisted the interns for six months prior to send offs. Photo credit: Shannon Ritter

Prep — The director of global studies internships assisted the interns for six months prior to send offs. Photo credit: Shannon Ritter

According to Khesed Dent, the director of global studies internships, preparation and training begins long before the orientation week in the interns’ global studies classes.

“We look at pretty much our entire degree program as training,” Dent said.

For the past three years, Dent, along with student workers, served the global studies students by preparing them for their internships as well as helping them process their trips once they return to the U.S.

Six months before the students were set to depart for their internships, Dent and some of the student workers in the global studies department held training workshops for the interns.

“It was a training time, but it really turned even more into just an opportunity to be reminded that the God of the heavens and the earth, the creator of the universe, is the one who’s going to provide for them,” Dent said. “So a lot of it is just reminding themselves that this task and this future seems big, but our God is bigger.”

Before leaving for various countries around the world, the 27 interns spent long days with faculty and last year’s interns going through many different areas of preparation. Twelve interns from last spring returned to offer knowledge from their experiences as well as set up and tear down the daily training sessions.

“Going into the week, (we reminded) them that … God is going to use them and it’s going to be really awesome, but it’s not about what they can do for God, and it’s not about how they can change the world,” Dent said. “It’s about God.”

worldwide — Twenty-seven global interns traveled to their destinations after a week of preparation before spring semester. Photo credit: Shannon Ritter

Worldwide — Twenty-seven global interns traveled to their destinations after a week of preparation before spring semester. Photo credit: Shannon Ritter

Student training involved going over expectations, academic training, language learning, and conflict styles, as well as going through the grand narrative of Scripture earlier in the previous fall semester. Students also went through simulation training for situations they would experience on the field.

According to Dent, some days of orientation lasted longer than others, but all of them were full of information students needed to hear before leaving for their respective countries.

“During orientation week last year we didn’t have as many returned interns come,” Jenna, a global studies intern last year, said.

Previous interns and student workers acted as people from other cultures. These actors helped prepare interns to handle crisis situations and interact with people from other cultures.

“Having returned interns there, who dealt with emergency situations while they were on the field was really helpful,” Dent said. “Because then it’s not just the professor saying stuff, but it’s the student saying, ‘No this is actually a big deal, you guys need to be listening.’”

On the last day of orientation week, all interns gathered together again and listened to Melody Harper, the chair of the department of Global Studies, who had helped the interns throughout the week, as she taught from the Bible. Dent referred to the time as a commissioning, where there was worship, a discussion about re-entering back into the U.S. after the end of their internship and instructions about transitioning from the book of Joshua.

According to Dent, a mass of information was crunched into the week time span, but there was one thing she hoped that each intern knew before they stepped onto the plane that would take them across the world.

“If they learned anything in training, it is that Jesus is Lord,” Dent said.

Editors Note: For security purposes, some names were changed.

Pierce is a feature reporter.

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