Photo by Bruce Gilbert
With five different administrative bodies, 17 separate agencies and five major locations, it would be tough to find an organization more complex than the United Nations. But on Sept. 15, members of the Fordham faculty and U.N. representatives met on the Lincoln Center campus to let students know how best to find internships and starter jobs there.
“I don’t know if any of you have ever been in a completely non-American climate, where everyone is from some other country. It’s the most exhilarating experience you can imagine,” said Fred Campano, associate professor of economics, who was a full-time economist for the U.N. Secretariat for 30 years.
Campano cautioned that students would be hard-pressed to get an internship at the Secretariat, the well-known part of the organization on East 42nd Street, because only graduate students are accepted for such positions.
Given the highly technical administrative nature of the work that’s done there, Campano said they would be better off considering organizations such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which is located in Geneva, Switzerland.
“You might be more interested, because there you’ll be talking about things that you’re more familiar with,” he said.
The gathering was one of three workshops presented at the fifth-annual international gathering, a conclave that is timed around the United Nations’ annual Department of Public Information Non Governmental Organizations (DPI/NGO) conference, which was held earlier that month in Paris.
Organized by Harold Takooshian, Ph.D., professor of psychology, it was attended by representatives from the U.N., NGO representatives, international psychologists, Fordham international faculty and students interested in work opportunities abroad and within the United Nations.
