Past Internships
International Masters Program, Asia-Pacific Affairs at NSYSU
Anina Dentel-Pham (Spring 2026, Middlebury College)
Hi everyone, I’m Anina! At Middlebury, I am a Political Science Major and during my semester in Taiwan I wanted to learn about International Relations while improving my Chinese. I am so grateful to Hong Laoshi for finding this opportunity for me. My internship was at the Master of Arts program in English for Asia-Pacific Affairs. My office was located within the Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies at National Sun Yat-sen University. My weekly tasks included drafting documents and interpreting from English to Chinese, chatting with graduate students, and “assisting” with administrative tasks in the office. Our office primarily provides degree information to graduate students. We also coordinated with the administration building, for example, by delivering official documents or administrative papers on behalf of our students.
This is my first internship abroad, combining classes and work. It is important the balance that is comfortable and works for you. At the beginning of the semester, I already had a particular view based on previous internships. After being in Taiwan, my original expectations changed and this inspired my essay topic, which is about my experiences with administrative processes and work cultures in the US and Taiwan. In my office, I observed how administrators, professors, and graduate students work to get things done together. I have gained a new understanding of Taiwanese work culture through reflection on cross-cultural communication.
One of my favorite memories was when we hosted a guest professor from Korea. He taught a game theory class and I had the opportunity to participate and then go to lunch with everyone after. Our group, the professor and 4 students represented all different countries from around the world. It was really cool to hear everyone’s perspectives and we had fun chatting about our time in Taiwan, global affairs, and stories from our hometown!
Kaohsiung Metropolitan News
Stephanie Lu (Spring 2026, Middlebury College)
My name is Stephanie Lu, and I had the opportunity to intern with Kaohsiung Metropolitan News this spring semester during my time studying abroad in Taiwan. Being my first office job and first non-remote internship, I found it difficult to adapt to at first. Most days, I assisted and shadowed a reporter with running the news throughout the city in the morning, learning about interview techniques and on-site video-taking strategies. In the afternoons, I would try my hand at drafting a news report script in Chinese, presenting it to reporters to receive feedback. This was not only beneficial to my Chinese writing abilities, but also taught me more about language usage in media production. Running the news also made me more aware of the issues locals face, and the solutions the government proposes to try and solve them. As I slowly became more comfortable in my position, doors were opened for me to try out other roles with the channel, such as being a floor director, camera operator, etc.
Perhaps the experience that left the greatest impression on me was when I was asked to appear on a special program to discuss the goat milk delivery business in Kaohsiung. I had never tasted goat milk before guesting on the program, while everyone else drank it every day when they were growing up. This experience made me realize that my views and experiences (or lack thereof) were valuable because they were so different from a local Taiwanese person’s, and that no matter what background we come from, there are still things we can learn from simply chatting with each other. It was also what enabled me to start building relationships with colleagues, which is what made it such an invaluable and unique experience during the course of my internship.
Chris Clyne (Spring 2026, Middlebury College)
During my semester in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, I was fortunate enough to intern as a research assistant in a laboratory with my university’s College of Medicine. This laboratory’s focus is on immunometabolism - specifically the investigation of how metabolic disorders and related treatments, such as GLP-1 agonists, influence the body’s innate immune system. Four months ago, this field of research and medicine was completely foreign to me, but this experience allowed me to explore it in depth. My responsibilities included learning and conducting laboratory experiments, and subsequently analyzing results. From an experimental standpoint, I gained exposure to cutting edge technologies like flow cytometry and confocal microscopy, along with fundamental techniques like the treatment and handling of mice, along with euthanasia and dissection. Paired with these experiments, I engaged in data analysis which allowed me to explore unfamiliar computer software and further solidify my understanding of our research. For these technical opportunities I am extremely grateful, but the added international aspect of this experience is what has left the greatest impression on me.
Not only did it blend my interest in Taiwanese culture with medicine and molecular biology, but this internship also allowed me to observe and participate firsthand within the international collaborative research process. Though separated by physical, political and cultural barriers, labs from different corners of the world have contributed to this discipline of immunometabolic research, and will continue to do so for decades to come. This type of global collaboration is something that makes the field of research so unique, and I feel very fortunate to have played a small role in it.