Yimo Chong is a Columbia College student majoring in Politics and Economics. He enjoys traveling and has recently visited Yesanpo, a national park and tourist destination located about two hours west of his native Beijing. Making the most of his summer break, he participated in a month-long virtual internship at Universidad de Chile’s Institute of International Studies (IEI), participating in a project on foreign policy and women inclusion in Latin America.
Chong says he was honored to intern for Professors Dorotea López (IEI Director) and María José Henríquez (Director of International Relations and Global Public Policies), while researching women’s participation in Argentinian foreign affairs. Among others, his tasks included providing a summary of the legacy and appointments of women that have served as ambassadors, ministers, and service directors, looking into laws that promote gender equity in the Foreign Ministry, as well as reviewing literature regarding women’s participation in foreign policy.
Though most of the project’s research involved sources in Spanish, Chong is fluent in the language which he says he was “happy to have learned.” Looking back on the experience, he recalls: “Since this was the first research position I have held, at first, I was very unsure of what to do, but with the help of my supervisors, I became familiarized with the expectations and experiences of the position.” The internship allowed him to learn how to organize and extract information from online documents and statutes, as well as gain a clearer picture of the contributions and limitations of Argentine women in foreign policy. “Even though it was a virtual internship, and we did not get to meet each other in Chile, I still loved the position because of the independence and schedule flexibility, as well as the research skills I acquired over the course of it,” he notes.
