Econ as a Second Language
About the author: Kyra Whitelaw’21 is an FSI The Europe Center Intern at Bruegel in Brussels, Belgium. Kyra is current studying Political Science at Stanford University.
This summer I am interning at Bruegel, a European economic policy think tank located in Brussels, Belgium. Coming to Bruegel as a Political Science major mostly focused on American politics, I worried that the high-level academic research occurring at Bruegel would by way out of my depth.
I wasn’t exactly wrong. When I was asked on my first day of work to summarize an article on FDI screening mechanisms, I didn’t know what an “FDI” was let alone how you might “screen” it. I spent most of the day Googling every other word in the article. By the end of that small task though, I had gone from not knowing what national and international investment policies were to being able to describe trends in worldwide adoption of such policies over the past several years, compare the policies held by different countries, and use these analyses to explain patterns in capital flows.
This sequence of events occurred repeatedly over the next couple of weeks when I was asked to complete a literature review on the EU-Mercosur Free Trade Agreement or gather data on the effect of cyberattacks on financial transactions. I would begin a project with absolutely no idea what half the words I was reading meant. By the end of my work, I would be proud to comprehensively describe my final results and findings to a Bruegel researcher.
Furthermore, beyond my day-to-day projects at Bruegel, I think I have learned the most from the friendships I have formed with my colleagues. Bruegel’s staff is very diverse, coming from all different countries across Europe and around the world. In my office alone, there are researchers from Italy, Portugal, Turkey, China, Croatia, Switzerland, and Spain. Simple conversations over lunch have led to deeper discussions about the different political systems, cultural practices, and societal norms we each inhabit.
Before coming to Bruegel, I was worried that doing an internship outside of my normal field of studies would be pointless. I worried that it wouldn’t further my career goals. However, I have found that doing an internship outside of my comfort zone has pushed me and taught me more than another experience would. I can honestly look back on each day that I spend at Bruegel and name ten new things I have learned since I entered the office that morning.
