Lydia Roberts
“I’m glad that my internship with a senator on Capitol Hill fell through. DC didn’t want me, so I defected to Moscow,” joked Brian Anderson, one of a small group of BYU students who spent the summer in Moscow, Russia, as part of the BYU Moscow International Internship pro- gram. At his internship at the prestigious Center for Strategic Research, Anderson researched the Russian economic climate and edited English-language updates on financial topics distributed around the world. With law school in his future, Anderson assumed his assignment would be connected to the courts. “Instead,” he said, “I had the chance to work with the research think tank and to not just make photocopies, but to do actual research, write a paper, spread information.”
BYU students like Anderson come to Moscow with a few goals in mind: they want to improve or maintain the Russian they learned as missionaries; they’re eager to see a side of Russian life that they didn’t experience as missionaries; and they’re looking for a way to gain business experience while earning university credit. The Russian major, according to internship director Tony Brown, an associate professor of Russian, encourages students to gain internship experience before graduation. “We want our students to have a chance to connect their classroom learning with their professional goals,” said Brown. “Internships provide invaluable pre-professional experience that enhances students’ undergraduate education and opens doors for future educational and career opportunities beyond the university.”
Students can pursue an internship in nearly any field of interest. For example, for three consecutive years, students interested in medical professions have interned at the European Clinic of Sports Traumatology and Orthopedics, where they have observed surgeries and assisted with procedures to a far greater degree than would be possible at an American institution. Students with interests in human rights work or archival research can take advantage of ties to the Memorial Society, one of the oldest NGOs and most comprehensive archives in the country. Other students landed positions at the US Embassy, working in the US Commercial Service, where they did research, sat in on business meetings where trade is facilitated between US and Russian businesses, and helped organize embassy events. In the process, they met diplomats, including the American Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Michael McFaul. In short, the opportunities in a megalopolis of 15 million people are myriad.
In addition to internships, program participants take classes with native Russian instructors to polish their language ability through discussion of such issues as unemployment, class divisions, and globalization.
Christina Champenois, a recent BYU graduate in Linguistics and Russian, was attracted to the program by the opportunity to see a different side of the city than she had seen as a missionary. “I really like the freedom. I’ve been able to travel to Saint Petersburg for the first time.” Champenois returned to Moscow to gain work experience at the renowned Slavic Center for Law and Justice, prior to entering BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School this fall. “The language experience has been really good,” she said. Champenois’s desire to broaden her experience helped her eventually find a second, additional internship. She divided her time between a law office and a children’s hospital, where she visited young cancer patients.
Interns in the program have the opportunity to live in a large, exciting city, gain work experience and course credit, and use their Russian language skills in real-world settings. As Anderson puts it, it’s important to him that he’s not just visiting Moscow, but actually living there. “We’re studying, we’re working, we’re living in Moscow. I think that’s pretty cool,” he said.