{"id":14246,"date":"2021-12-01T11:30:07","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T16:30:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/?p=14246"},"modified":"2022-08-05T09:47:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-05T13:47:26","slug":"interning-virtually-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/interning-virtually-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Interning (Virtually) Abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With borders around the world still closed to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, Mona Ray Cobb, a senior political science and legal studies student, had to get creative if she wanted to pursue a global education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A recipient of the U.S. Department of State\u2019s Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship, a grant that enables \u201cstudents of limited financial means to study or intern abroad,\u201d Cobb was supposed to study in France before the program suspended international travel due to COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead, she coordinated with International Studies Abroad and her Monmouth advisors to find a solution that would satisfy graduation requirements while fulfilling the goal of an international experience: a virtual internship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not just any virtual internship\u2014Cobb is working with Villarreal CF, one of Spain\u2019s top football clubs, right from her residence hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOriginally, I was unsure about working with Villarreal since I\u2019m not much of a sports person,\u201d says Cobb, \u201cbut my advisors really showed me how learning about the organization\u2019s community involvement and nonprofit efforts would fit my career goals.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a graduate program in public policy and administration hopefully on the horizon, Cobb is committed to ultimately pursuing work in nonprofits and securing educational opportunities for others. Having benefited from supportive programming such as Monmouth\u2019s Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF)<\/a> and other scholarships and counseling services, she has seen firsthand how they can impact lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore I started college, EOF gave me the tools and resources I needed to prepare for that transition. They helped me financially and gave me a network of people I could reach out to before I even came to campus,\u201d Cobb says. \u201cEven when things were hard, such as not being able to study abroad during the pandemic, I had a counselor that would say, \u2018Here\u2019s another way.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After she finishes her internship this semester, Cobb will complete a service project aimed at raising awareness of the Gilman Scholarship and educating her fellow EOF students on ways to secure the financial means that would allow them to study abroad. \u201cThese programs have helped me so much, so I\u2019m glad to give back and share that knowledge with others,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While her experience with the Gilman Scholarship didn\u2019t lead to moving to a new city, Cobb has gained valuable insight from navigating today\u2019s complicated global landscape and stepping outside of her comfort zone by working in a new field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought my internship had to be perfect,\u201d she says, \u201cbut now I know that everything is a learning process. It\u2019s OK to step back, ask questions, communicate, and try new things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gilman Scholar Mona Ray Cobb didn\u2019t earn any frequent flyer miles but still learned plenty interning with one of Spain\u2019s top football clubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":14249,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"image_focus":"{\"x\":51,\"y\":29}","hide_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-14246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-currents","tag-alumni-student-faculty"],"thumbnail":"\"\"","catString":"Currents","issue":"Fall\/Winter 2021","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14246"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14251,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14246\/revisions\/14251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}