Winter 2017-2018
Independent Study
Independent Study
My goals are learning how the conference committee works and studying for the current issues of "urban governance" through this internship in the field. During this experience in the Urban Governance Institute of Peking University, I worked in the conference committee office. The conference committee was really busy. They held about two meetings a week on average. I understand how the committee works as well as knew the currently central questions of urban governance by going through the flow of meetings. Mrs. Han connected to some students need help and introduced to me. I helped the students to collect the sources and analyze the references. Therefore, I was able to add knowledge to my study by reading the documents.
I met my goals successfully. The only regret was I could not join one project about the relationship between environment and urban governance because of the time limitation. However, I'm glad that I met my goals and I'm really appreciated all the people helped me through this experience.
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Today is the last day of my internship in the Urban Governance Institute of Peking University. In the morning, I just customarily checked our website, posted news, and took notes for the weekly report. Then I looked at the meeting calendar and sent out the reminding emails for the next two days. “Ringringring,” the telephone ring, the accounting office in the upstairs wanted the bill for the furniture we ordered a few days ago. I texted my colleagues and asked for the bill, then brought it to upstairs and went back. My wechat got twinkling again. Ms. Han might ask me to do something. Everything sounds normal to me. I am gradually familiar with every works here and I am enjoying it. I like the working and studying environment here, and I’m a little reluctant to leave.
After I finished my works, I met with Mengxin in order to verify the following work I am going to do in the US. Basically, I will continually help her team to complete their database and work on references analysis. She gave me some of her books about urban governance for gifts and wished me to learn more and more in this area. When I went to find Ms. Han to thank her for her guides in these days, I also saw Mr. Yu, the president of the Urban Governance Institute. Although I did not know him very much and only see him few times during this internship because he was always in the meetings or on the business trips, I read a lot of his reports and papers when I was collecting the resources. I respect all the scholars at Peking University. They had to work so hard on many projects to get some significant achievements in order to prove their ability. My experience of this internship is finished, but my thought of urban governance and study will not reach the end. Thanks so much to the kind teachers, scholars, and colleagues, I will remember this interesting experience and miss them a lot. Today we had a meeting with the scholars at the China University of Geosciences. This is an important meeting. We invited the journalists in Phoenix TV to report. There are many international experts and scholars. Therefore, I was in charge of the translation works. I was a little bit nervous because I could make sure I understand everything they said, but I needed to translate into another language immediately. This possess need the ability to think and respond quickly. In the first ten minutes, I was in a great bustle. I had to smile and answered the international scholars as well as translate to Chinese scholars about both what the international scholars said and what I answered. I felt that everyone was confused about my translation. Later, I started to just translate their conversations without any personal reply. After this change, the communication between the experts seems a lot more fluent.
While all the experts and scholars finished and got into their seats, I also seated in the back and listen to their meeting in order to learn more about current urban governance information. The meeting was mainly talking about the urban regional planning by the combination of geosciences and governance. The most important point was the problem of garbage disposal. To be more specific, “where we should bury the waste” and “how we are able to do our best to recycle the garbage” are two significant issues which have to be resolved as soon as possible. Today is another busy meeting day. I enjoyed this academic atmosphere. The quick translation between Chinese and English is a new experience for me. I wish I could have a better skill in both Chinese and English in the future and have more opportunities to join international activities. Yesterday night, Mengxin replied my reference collection report. She was glad and congratulated me that I did a good job. I was very happy for this succeeds of the first try of arranging sources. Mengxin told me that she would send it to her teammates then proceed to the next steps. Next steps may not in the time limitation of the intensive classes, but she likes my working style, and she would like to continue connecting with me about her topics in the future. This is an excellent opportunity for my learning process in the future; I am super excited to work with Mengxin and her team continually.
Our office brought a group of furniture for the meeting room. The most things I was doing today were helping my colleague check the furniture and type in to the furniture library of school. My colleague is an undergraduate student of Urban Governance. As an intern, it’s normal for me to some random works which others have no time to do, but she is a lot more professional than me in Urban Governance. She smiled and told me that in the workplace, she had to work as hard as she can to reach a higher place and others are able to know her. In the afternoon, I wrote our office’s work report for this week. I summarized our major events, such as, meetings, the publishment of papers and important purport. My blog helped me to memorize the process a lot. It’s near the end of my internship. I’m starting to miss this experience even I’m not leaving yet. I learned so much and there are so many kind people helped as well as guided me. I’m really appreciated. In the morning, I quickly rechecked my reference collection and sent to Mengxin then waited for the reply when she finished her classes. It’s near the final exams, so Mengxin is pretty busy these days.
Later, Ms. Han asked me to prepare for the meeting in the afternoon. This time, I found the printing-room successfully. I emailed the committee, guests, and scholars to remind them this meeting. In the afternoon, Mengxin still did not answer my message. I turned off my phone and joined the meeting. Today’s discussion was centered on “Urban Governance – smart community” program. This program is focused on rural development in urban governance, modernization evaluation index system, cultural management, and technology innovation with the support of enormous database. The committee is keeping working on the expansion of database system while they are solving the problem of cities. Today's meeting helped me to have a better understanding of current urban governance issues and plans. Moreover, I was happy to meet two new scholars of urban governance. Today was another day working on the references of “Global Campaign on Urban Governance.” There were 33 sources, some were long documentary, and others were short articles or analysis. Therefore, based on the documents I found and download yesterday, I putted them in five big order, they are short articles, report, statements, extra, and irrelevant. When I read one document and I found it did not talk about anything contribute to how citizens participate in urban governance at all, I can put it in irrelevant and stop looking it more carefully. Then I used five colors to mark five main topics: rights for women, poverty, environment, urbanization, and human rights. After I read them, I can mark different color to memorize what each document mainly talking about. After doing these three steps, I will consider their explanation quality with experience, for example, academic words, credible sources, and good examples. At last, combine all four steps especially the contexts and quality; I divided the references in two parts, recommend and not recommend. I was almost finished today, during weekends I will read the documents again in order to double check my two groups. This was the first time I collected the references of an official documentary by my own. I was both excited and nervous. I learned a lot of information of urban governance through reading and skills of collecting reference through doing work as well as asking questions.
Mengxin had time to talk with me today. Therefore, we met and talked about the document – “Global Campaign on Urban Governance” - I read a few days ago. She read the questions I gave her and asked me to analyze the document roughly. This document mainly focused on what kind of governance is good urban governance and how the government can achieve it. Mengxin confirmed my understanding and told me that her topic is focused on how the citizens can participate in urban governance easier. She wants me to look at the references of this document - “Global Campaign on Urban Governance.” Then qualify the references and choose the high quality as well as the most relevant documents as the recommendation references for her topic. Mengxin gave me until Monday noon to finish this. In my mind, I had completed many research papers, and I was already familiar with finding and qualify the references, so I was pretty confident. However, when I started to do this, I felt the difficulties. First, there is no work cite page; all the citations are at the bottom of every page. Therefore, I collected a references list page by page. Then, a big problem came out; I cannot find the contents of the references on the regular websites like “Google,” or “Baidu,” even on the online library of Peking University. Therefore, I asked Mengxin for help, Mengxin suggested me to use google scholar, as expected, I found most documents I need. While I was reading these references, I learned more about recent issues of urban governance. I felt I am able to understand their ideas deeper by the reading, listening, and observations of these days. Learning through the real experiences is more helpful and interesting than you thought. The website of UN Habitat: http://www.un-habitat.org The website of Cities Alliance http://www.citiesalliance.org I was following Mengxin whole day today because everyone in my office except me was ill today including Ms. Han. Last night, Ms. Han texted me that she connected with Mengxin and Mengxin was willing to take me to her class. She thinks the professional classes are able to help me to improve my knowledge in urban governance. These days Beijing is super cold, and many people are sick because of this suddenly weather change.
Mengxin had a lot of classes today. She had three in the morning and one in the afternoon. They are public policy, social psychology, social security, and public administration organization. I was interested in public policy. Today they were talking about how the government could reasonably apportioning social resources among members of society. The professor did not give us an exact answer, but he mentioned the word “inclusive” multiple times. This class relative to the document I read the other day. Inclusive is the principle and the basis of every element in governance. During lunch, Mengxin asked me why I came to study for urban governance. To be honest, I had never thought about this question seriously. At first, I just think maybe urban governance will be an interesting topic because I want to know how the government kept developing the city. Now I feel that the study of urban governance is my mission to make my city better. In the morning, Ms. Han told me that she needed a document from accounting department and went into a meeting. Through these days, I am familiar with the campus, so I walked there alone. I was quite confident of myself. However, when I got to the accounting department in my mind, the staffs told me that they are printing room and the accounting department is the building right in front of theirs. Even worse, I lost my position while I was back. I remembered the building of the Urban Governance Institute is “Liao Kaiyuan Building,” and I asked a student. Unfortunately, that student did not know “Liao Kaiyuan Building” because she is a freshman in the school of businesses. I was worried if Ms.Han finished her meeting and had to get this document as soon as possible. I began to randomly walk in the school in order to find one landmark that I might know. Finally, I saw a student I remembered who was working in the lab last Friday. He walked with me to the Urban Governance Institute. Thanks to him, I was on time because Ms. Han was still in her meeting. Later, Ms. Han called me to join the meeting because they were discussing a project about the plan of a cooperation project between Beijing and Qingdao. This topic could help me to comprehend Urban Goverance better. Many members gave suggestions, for example the expansion of subway lines, the creation of characteristics of tourism, and the encouragement of extensive exercise. In the afternoon, there is another meeting about Urban Governance Innovation. Many famous scholars and professors attended, such as the head of Governance School of Peking University Mr. Shen, Vice President of the Chinese law society Mr. Luo, and Vice President of urban planning association of China Mr. Wu. Although I did not entirely understand their conversations, I was glad that this opportunity to observe brought me an to the field of Urban Governance. Peking University Weiming Lake and Boya Tower
Ms. Han was out of office whole day today, and Mengxin had to stay in the library to review her test. After the learning and observation in previous three days, I am able to understand official documents of Urban Governance. Therefore, Mengxin sent me a long document about “The Global Campaign on Urban Governance” and wanted me to go over it then take notes, especially some questions, the parts I am interested with, and main points. She told me that she will tell me what I need to do specifically after I finish reading the document. It took me a long time to go through the document because it is an official report with governmental tone and specialized vocabulary plus it is quite long. I had been reading it all the morning and a part of the time in the afternoon. The main contents are about the central concept of an inclusive city, and how to complete it through good governance. Nowadays, poverty and welfare are two significant issues. After I finished the document, I found it mentioned that “The Global Campaign on Urban Governance” need the contribution of everyone in the nation, and improve women participation of civil society is one of their goals. I am appealing to women power, so I texted Mingxin that I finished the document and went to the library. I want to know the relationship between women participation in the community and social structure. Peking University has the most extensive collection of the precious documentary in China. I found the article I want by the helping of a kind professor. I roughly read through it, and my colleague called me back to set up the meeting tonight. I will keep this point in mind and ask Mengxin sometime.
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AuthorJingyi Sun "Lisa," a sophomore from MVCDS (Toledo, OH, USA). ArchivesCategories |