My new job

I started my new job this morning at the Institute of International Education. I wanted to wait until after Ryan had left before I started the position. My supervisor, Linh, is on maternity leave so I am filling in for her as the site's advisor in the morning, and another intern, Tram, works as an advisor in the afternoons. I've been interning there since September, but this is an actual paid position. So far what I have been doing at IIE is editing student's Statement of Purposes (SOPs) for their admission applications for undergrad and graduate study in the United States, giving presentations on the US university system and American culture, and assisting with the two college fairs that they held in October and in February. In addition to those tasks, I will be directly advising students at the IIE office from 8:30 to noon Monday-Friday. It's pretty awesome because this is exactly the type of thing that I'd like to be doing.

When I got in this morning I sat at Linh's desk and I realized that I had no idea what I had to do. She gave me a half hour overview of what she does a few weeks ago, but that really wasn't enough. One student came in and I answered some of her questions about MBA programs and scholarships and then quickly ushered her to the library where she could find the answers to the questions I didn't know. Besides that, I began to compile a list of available scholarships for Vietnamese/International students because I noticed on Linh's computer that the most recent list was created in 2006. That took me a few hours and I still have a lot more research to do tomorrow.

After I left the center I ate some com binh dan for lunch and went home. Since I live right down the street from the Ho Chi Minh museum I went for a walk around the complex. I've begun to agree with my students about the size of my waistline (something that has been pointed out to me at least four or five times), so I will start to make this part of my daily routine.