Thursday, May 15, 2014

Housing and Final Goodbye

Several people have been asking me how to go about finding housing for the fall. There is on-campus housing available for graduate students in Sansom Place. These are furnished with the basics and are a bit dorm-like but a lot of people like the fact that it is close to their classes and provides some extra security than if you were living in your own place.

 


For those wanting to live off-campus there are plenty of options available within walking distance to GSE. Penn security patrols the area several blocks from campus, which is an added bonus I think. If you are looking for a place you might start by checking out GSE accepted students facebook page. A lot of people are advertising that they are looking for roommates right now. Also check out Penn's housing website here. This is a great place to find available listings.

There are plenty of real estate companies here and you could also do a google search for those in Philly and check out the real estate company's website.

A final option is to apply to be a GA in one of the college houses (this is like the graduate version of resident assistant) and comes with free housing and meal plan. You can find out information about being a GA here




A final note: This will be my last blog post :(  I will be graduating on Saturday!!! After that I'll be heading to Nigeria to complete an internship with UNICEF as the final component of my program. I have enjoyed meeting and interacting with many of you through our various admissions events this year. Thanks for reading my blog and I wish you the best of luck at Penn or wherever you choose to go in the future. Have a great summer everyone!!

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Curriculum and Pedagogy in International Contexts by Laura Conrad

This semester, I took Curriculum and Pedagogy in International Contexts with Dr. Ghaffar-Kucher. The class struck a balance between theory and practical experiences. I worked in a small group with three other GSE students. We collaborated with SEEKHO, an organization in Bihar, India to create a teacher training resource guide.

Initially we worked with current and former Penn students who founded SEEKHO to learn about the organization and what they were hoping to receive from us. The project was a great way to put the theories we were learning about into practice. 

Over the course of the semester, we created a resource guide which walks teachers through different strategies they can use to incorporate critical thinking in the classroom. Overall, it was a really positive experience and it also highlighted some of the challenges that come with education and development. Now looking back, the group is really proud of the document (and short video) that we will be sending to SEEKHO to use in their teacher trainings.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Atlantic City shopping

Classes are over and I'm putting the final touches on my last project tonight...so basically the year is over!!! Yesterday to celebrate a few of us from IEDP went to Atlantic City to go shopping at the outlets there. We were all looking for professional attire to wear for our internships this summer, but we got a few other things too! It was a lot of fun. You can get there using New Jersey transit and the train ride is just a little over an hour. We spent the whole day going from one store to the next and then made it back here to Philly about 11 last night. What a great way to finish off the semester.


Thursday, May 8, 2014

Final Reflections on IEDP




Today was our last class together as the 2013-14 IEDP cohort *tear. Someone from Penn came to talk with us about our internships (legistic stuff) and it was so amazing as we went around the room each one naming the country he/she is going to be in for the summer.
Some include:
    Kenya
    Tanzania
    Uganda
    France
    Germany
    Nigeria
    Peru
    India
    Chile
    Samoa
    Philippines
    South Africa

There was so much excitement and anticipation in the room. We all look forward to our internship and some of us are also looking forward to graduation in just two weeks! Being our last class, we took some time to reflect on what we have learned this year. We each shared our "ah ha" moments and how we have changed since orientation day.

Some, like me, reflected on the moment when they realized that development work is insanely complicated!! That it's this big mess of intersections and overlapping. We laughed as we thought back to the end of the first semester when most of us felt like saying "so why on earth are we even here?" Sometimes the complexity of development, education more specifically, can seem overwhelming. You can begin to feel paralyzed that whatever you do is going to be wrong and you'll end up just doing more harm than good. I can testify to the fact that we have had many conversations around this throughout the year. Yet, today was not about discouragement or fear but about hope. Just because you can't change everything doesn't mean you can't and shouldn't change ONE thing. You can't force change. Not at a macro level or the individual level. What I've learned to see though is that there are opportunities all around and what we can do is be ready when those opportunities present themselves. Be ready to give your thoughts or suggestion, be ready to speak into someone's life, be ready to effect change.

Walking away from IEDP we also go with new tools in our belts. We now know how to make a logframe, write a technical proposal and a policy brief!  And perhaps most importantly, we walk away with new friends. Friends who will also be trying to make little changes in the pockets that they are working in. Friends who can hopefully help us get jobs one day soon :) Friends who can encourage and support us when this work gets hard and we feel discouraged that we aren't making as much difference as we hoped we would. I have enjoyed meeting each and every person in our cohort this year. We all bring such different perspectives and experiences and yet we learned to value one another. I hope to keep in contact with them for a long time to come!

Sunday, May 4, 2014

South Street Spring Festival


Philadelphians  LOVE street festivals! Here are a few that I now of/attended this year.

In the fall there is the annual Chinese night market. This is where thousands of people from all over Philly crowd into Chinatown from about 11pm onward for great discounted Chinese food, concert and fun. 
There is also the Baltimore dollar stroll which took place in October. It is along Baltimore ave from about 40th street to 50th street. All the local restaurants along that street bring food out to the street and offer samplings for $1. You can get beer, pizza, Chinese, Ethiopian etc. all for just a buck!

This past weekend I went to the South Street festival. There was a section of the festival dedicated to German food and beer, and along the rest of South street you could find local restaurants out selling their food. There were several concerts going on... as well as a few entertainers who just decided to start their own "concert" along the street. 

The weekend of Penn's graduation will be another festival, the Italian market street festival. 

Philly is known as the city for food and it doesn't disappoint!

Thursday, May 1, 2014

Dave Reinersmann on: Coming Back in the Fall


A common question from prospective students to the International Ed Development Program is whether to “do 5-and-5” or spread it out. At Penn GSE, taking 4 or 5 courses in one semester has the same tuition cost, meaning that IEDP’s 10-course program can be completed in two semesters (faster!) for the cost of 8 courses (cheaper!). At first, this seems like the obvious answer, but I chose the other one. We’re nearing the end of our second semester now, and I’ve only completed 7 courses (well, almost, but I’m optimistic). I’ll be back in the Fall after the summer internship to complete my final 3 courses.
Luckily, I’m independently wealthy, so this isn’t a problem for me. Oh wait, that’s a huge lie. No, I’m taking on additional debt to spread out my time here at Penn: tuition and living expenses that are significant amounts.
My decision was partly motivated by the anticipated workload: 5 Ivy-League graduate courses at once is a lot of work. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to delve too deeply into any of the subjects in my efforts just to keep up with the weekly readings, papers, projects, etc. This concern has been mostly allayed by seeing my colleagues work: yes, they are working very hard every day, but they have just as rich and robust an understanding of the materials as I do.
Another part of the decision was motivated by my lack of direction. Despite sounding like a fairly small niche of the education or development fields, international educational development is a varied and complex world. I didn’t have a clear understanding of my place in it or the directions I wanted to go before I came to Penn. My thinking was that after my internship (which is likely to be in Nairobi, Kenya with UNESCO), I would be able to further hone my skills and studies to specialize in this huge field. But this concern has also been lessened over time: I feel that there are a few areas where I have a deeper understanding and a focus within the field. And “5-and-5” colleagues that had just as little direction as I did in September have their specializations and interest areas.
My main motivator was stress management. I have depression and anxiety, and I need to carefully manage my exposure to stressors and trigger situations. Obviously, grad school is stressful. Duh. Even some of my classmates without a history of depression or anxiety have experienced periods of acute depressive symptoms and high stress. I don’t want to paint a terrible picture: we’re all mostly happy and loving and doing good work. The biggest defense against the bad days is the close, wonderful relationships that developed over the course of the last 9 months.
But the bad days do happen. For someone like me, having too many bad days in a row is unacceptable, and I was fully aware of that coming in. Managing that stress meant spreading it out, even if it cost more. I am happy with my decision, and given the opportunity, I would make it again. But I also have a number of 5-and-5 classmates (slightly over half of our cohort), and they’re happy with their decisions.
So this is a very personal decision, and one that needs a lot of care. Unfortunately, it needs to be made before the end of the Fall add/drop period: about 3 weeks into the semester. I encourage prospective students to discuss it with professors here, current and former students, friends and family, and maybe even a financial advisor or therapist. Maybe make a flow chart! I love flow charts.
See you in the Fall.

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Invited Guest Lecture Series- Jeff Sachs

 

IES and IEDP hosted a joint guest lecture today by Jeffery Sachs. Jeffrey D. Sachs is a world-renowned professor of economics, leader in sustainable development, senior UN advisor, bestselling author, and syndicated columnist whose monthly newspaper columns appear in more than 100 countries.

Professor Sachs serves as the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He has authored three New York Times bestsellers in the past seven years: The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011). His most recent book is To Move the World: JFK's Quest for Peace (2013).

Professor Sachs is widely considered to be one of the world's leading experts on economic development and the fight against poverty. His work on ending poverty, promoting economic growth, fighting hunger and disease, and promoting sustainable environmental practices, has taken him to more than 125 countries with more than 90 percent of the world's population. For more than a quarter century he has advised dozens of heads of state and governments on economic strategy, in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

His talk was entitled 'Education and Sustainable Development'. Sachs has been deeply involved in the talks around the new sustainable development goals, which will set the international development agenda for 2016-2030. He sees education as having a prominent place in these goals. Sachs defines sustainable development as meaning a holistic approach to development. One that encompasses economic, social and environmental objectives. A fundamental strategy for sustainable development would include investment in five areas:
    Human capital
    Business capital
    Infrastructure capital
    Social capital
    Natural capital

Each one of these depends on the others and therefore you cannot bring development without addressing all five areas. Several times during his talk Sachs brought up the connection of education and fertility rates. In many places around the world, especially Sub-Saharan Africa there is extremely high fertility rates. The population is now increasing at such a profound rate that the region cannot absorb the resulting increase in demand for food, medicine, education etc. "This is not sustainable", Jeff says. There is immediate need to get children, especially girls, into school because we have seen that education does have an influence on lowering fertility rates.

Sachs stressed the importance of setting clear goals and then getting people to see them. He recently wrote a book about JFK entitled JFK's Quest for Peace. JFK was an inspiration to Sachs early in his life and showed him the importance of goal setting.