Ole Miss Students Gain Global Experience in East Asia

The life-changing opportunities were part of the university's Experiential Learning in East Asia program. The program is sponsored in partnership by the Croft Institute for International Studies and the Office of Global Engagement and funded by the Freeman Foundation.

"The Croft Institute and campus at large are indebted to Dr. Oliver Dinius, the previous executive director, for landing this important grant as the anchor of our global internship initiative," said Noell Wilson, the institute's executive director. "We hope to continue our partnership with the Freeman Foundation moving forward even as we expand our internship placement to other world regions."

The Freeman Foundation provided funding to launch the program at UM in 2018. Since then, dozens of Ole Miss students have traveled and worked in East Asia.

"The goal of the program is to provide students the opportunity to gain practical work experience and gain experience operating in East Asia," said Chase Young, Croft Institute academic adviser and coordinator of alumni affairs. "The missions of the Freeman Foundation, broadly, is to foster connections between the U.S. and East Asia, particularly with Japan, Korea and Taiwan."

Students from the College of Liberal Arts and the schools of Applied Sciences and Engineering interned this summer in Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Taiwan and Malaysia.

Hearing a friend who previously participated in the program recount her experiences persuaded first-generation international studies student Meritxell Ambrocio, of Ellisville, to apply.

"I hope to one day become a diplomat," Ambrocio said. "What better way to develop those skills than learning the importance of knowing what the people need and how to get them what they need and be a spokesperson."

She spent her summer in Bali working with Terra Water Indonesia, a company that manufactures ceramic water filters and supplies them to villages there to ensure they can have safe and uncontaminated water.

As part of her internship. Ambrocio developed blog content for the company as well as its social programming. She got out of the office to interact with residents of a remote Bali village as part of that social programming.

"It was interesting seeing how the people lived with very little," the Ole Miss junior said. "They had never seen a water filter like the ones that the company was showing, and they were very intrigued by it."

She could tell that the villagers were surprised by the simple technology.

"I might not be able to have grand conversations with them in their language, but it is heartwarming for me to see that I, in a sense, played a part helping them get something that they needed," Ambrocio said.

"It was one of the best experiences I have had up to date."

Always interested in learning about other countries, international studies and public policy leadership major Zachary Rifkin experienced the world's largest city, Tokyo, for his internship.

Living there for two months was more than just taking a trip, the Hattiesburg sophomore said.

"I've been to Japan before for a short trip during my senior year of high school for two weeks," he said. "It doesn't compare to living there for two months, really learning everything there is to do and living like a local."

Rifkin interned with Reskill, a company that provides professional education and development for employees of other businesses to ensure that they have an efficient, effective and happy workplace environment.

"I was tasked with translating materials from Japanese to English, ensuring it makes sense in English, and making it more advertisable and appealing to companies in Singapore, which is quite a difficult task," he said.

He and his fellow interns also improved the company's presence on social media.

"We started growing the company's LinkedIn page, which is not very big in Japan, but we thought it would be interesting to see how that worked, and we were able to grow its following," Rifkin said.

Away from work, students also learned from their cultural experiences.

Although it was her first time out of the country, Ambrocio embraced the 30-hour flight and adventures. She went camping with coworkers and visited nearby towns, a monkey sanctuary and a rice plantation.

"Visiting the rice plantation was very interesting and beautiful," Ambrocio said. "I hadn't thought about how rice was cultivated before, and it was incredible to actually see how it was done."

Rifkin enjoyed taking cooking classes and samurai lessons and visiting temples and festivals.

"I experienced what it would be like to live there, even if it was just a brief two months," Rifkin said. "It taught me that this type of work is something that I want to pursue in the future.

"I'm very grateful that I had the opportunity to get that test run."

Other participants awarded fellowships in the program were:

• Aza Booth, a computer science major from Booneville
• Ammar Dimachkie, an international studies major from Canton
• Tiana Hough, a criminal justice and psychology student from Hattiesburg
• Jayla LaGarde, an international studies major from Long Beach
• Adam Maatallah, an international studies and public policy leadership student from Madison
• Ilyazbek Mamadaliev, an engineering major from Andijan, Uzbekistan
• Mubinakhon Mirzaeva, an economics student from Dangara, Uzbekistan
• Hailey Terrell, a linguistics major from Liberty.

All the students gained valuable insight through their time in the Far East.

"We want them to have the kind of experiences where they can build their resumes, their confidence and their skills to operate in an international environment so that they can transfer those abilities to their future careers," Young said.

Top: Zachary Rifkin, an Ole Miss sophomore from Hattiesburg, learns to make traditional Japanese food as part of his cultural immersion in Japan. He took the cooking class while spending two months in Tokyo as part of the Croft Institute’s Experiential Learning in East Asia program, where he interned with Reskill. Submitted photo