Scholar
serves U.N. at summer internship
By
Rachel Furlong
Contributing Writer
Online Forty-Niner
Come fall Anahit Samarjian will certainly have a lot to tell her friends about
what she did on her summer vacation.
Samarjian, a student at Cal State Long Beach, has spent most of her summer
in New York City taking part in the United Nations Headquarters Internship
Programme, which began June 7 and ends Friday.
While an internship at the UN is already quite an accomplishment in itself,
Samarjian’s situation is particularly special. The program is supposed
to be for graduate students but she will just be beginning her junior year
at CSULB in the fall after she returns from New York.
Samarjian, who is double majoring in international studies and communications,
is a President’s Scholar at CSULB. She was born in Armenia but moved
to Fresno at a young age, where she lived until she came to Long Beach to attend
school.
Samarjian is working in the Department of Management at the UN directly under
the secretary of the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly. The Fifth Committee
is on the six main committees of the General Assembly and is in charge of working
out administrative and budgetary issues.
The Fifth Committee meets for three sessions each year. The one Samarjian has
been working on began in May, and has generally focused on peacekeeping.
She attends meetings of the Fifth Committee, takes notes, and reports on what
happened, as well as other odd jobs.
“I don’t really do that much.” she said. “They can’t
really give me anything too important to do.”
The Fifth Committee is supposed to be completely neutral, and as a part of
the Fifth Committee, Samarjian is supposed to be completely neutral on the
issues being deliberated.
“It was made very clear to me on my first day, ‘Do not express opinion,’” she
said.
However, she has enjoyed being able
to walk around the UN headquarters
and to talk to people. She also
has her own computer there, on
which she has access
to various official documents.
“It’s really amazing, I have access to all of these important documents
and information that I would have never come across had I not come here,” she
said.
Samarjian said her experience at the UN has been valuable because she has learned
a lot about the world and how it is run.
“I’ve learned a lot about politics, political processes, world affairs,
bureaucracy,” she said. “I really have a better idea of the reality
of how things are run in the world on the highest levels.”
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