2006 Summer Internship Report

Terri LAM Wan Man, August 2006

If you ask me “Did you gain anything from the internship?” my answer must be “YES! SURE!”

Cause through this internship, I really re-know and review myself. If life is a journey, it is not only an excellent stage for me to stay and refresh, but also a fantastic place for me to ruminate on and grow my further plan. Only a piece of summer, enough to make my world different! Quite incredible and totally exceeded my expectations.

Remember before I saw the internship introducing email, I have already intended to extend my study and also to have some changes in my life. Therefore, once I received the email, I decided immediately that “I have to join this meaningful programme!” Fortunately and thankfully, I passed the interview and got this chance to be one of the UNDP’s summer interns in 2006 in Beijing.

Working at UNDP is quite free, I can mange myself by myself, but of course I have to achieve the missions on time. Moreover, there are several available meetings, trainings and activities which I love to attend or participate in, as they can help me to learn more about what UNDP is doing. One of the memorable moments for me was exactly the wonderful tea party we had in the u-shape garden!

My task in UNDP is to assist the research of “Environmentally Friendly City Index”, of which one of my missions is to attain some information directly from other members of the UNDP, the local government and related NGOs. It should not be difficult actually, but as summer is a holiday season, including UNDP, so I have to wait patiently for their reply with sufficient supports, unfortunately, time is so tight for a summer intern, so I cannot afford to wait. Nevertheless, they gave me some hints and assistants at last, and hence I also got a lot of valuable recommendations that I really appreciate from those experts of my team – Energy and Environment Team. I also found that some Expos I attended and some photos I took in Beijing can be utilized on my research! Quite interesting!

As this is the first time I come to Beijing, everything here for me is fresh and different, so I can learn Beijing more and more day by day, and thus to have a lot of new and good experiences that I love to. Even though maybe only walk on different streets can be full of amazement and joy for me! My favorite ways to learn Beijing is through cycling, so that I can stop anytime at anywhere, and through reading local newspapers as well as visiting different Expos or seminars. Beijing is an interesting place, so surely I will be back!

Although I am going to back to Hong Kong very soon, but I think my interest on understanding what UNDP is doing would not be terminated, UNDP will become one of my supporting-centers and enormous databanks!