Cohort Love

When I first found out that my entire master's program was under 20 people, I was a bit scared. I'm used to big things. My high school class had close to 500 people. My college.... easily in the thousands. Many of the programs I applied to for grad school ranged from about 50-200 but under 20 was a lot less than I had ever experienced. When I showed up on the first day of orientation, I found out I was just one of 13!  I worried if we'd all get along with being such a small cohort. What if we were all so different we'd never agree on anything ?

 And yes, we don't. We seldomly all agree. But we always find consensus.

Though we all come from different backgrounds, nationalities, and expertise we've all grew close to one another in one way. As of now in our third academic semester, we have dwindled down to 10. But I feel that our bonds have just strengthened. Moreover, it really shows how efficient and effective we've become since we've worked so close with one another.

You really feel this when you interact with other graduate students from other masters. I've been taking class at the nearby Graduate Institute this semester; and though their establishment is high quality I find that the quality of the overall work done is nothing close to where we are (sorry!). The interaction, quality of work, and coordination that we've developed over the past year has been nothing but amazing.

In our last academic semester, we have less chances to see each other as we are all taking various electives. Nevertheless it's these rare moments we get together for a meal that I really feel the sense of belonging and real appreciation for the small size class we have. To a great cohort and good food (Persian!)

Autumn 紅葉の秋

It's getting into fall season...It's always beautiful walking along the river banks by campus

10月後半に入りメッキリ寒くなってきました。連日一桁気温！毎日歩いて通学しているので手袋とマフラーは欠かせません。ただし、紅葉が綺麗なので寒くても外を歩く価値大アリです♪　でもこれからもっと寒くなりそう・・　

Field Trip

Mini excursion with my ecosystems class out to the outskirts of Geneva,
It's beautiful around this time of the year!

Did not know we had an official university car...

GSP

Once again I wasn't able to update at all during the duration of the program!
After my summer school course was over, I participated in another program called the United Nations Graduate School Program in which graduate students from all over the world come together to learn more about the UN agencies and discuss on various coming topics. This year we focuses on the Sustainable Development Goals which are of course, the post-2015 goals from the Millennium Development goals and are in the midst of being discussed and approved by the UN member states in September.

It's been a grueling 10 days with listening to presentations and forums all day. Plus I had somehow become the leader in my working group - hence we had a report and presentation at the very end which was nothing more than pure intense work...but it all paid off in the end.

目まぐるしい一ヶ月でしたが、無事夏期講習＆研修を終えることができました。
最後の2週間は毎年国連が開催している大学院生プログラムの研修でした。世界中から代表者が集まり、国連でのさまざまな機関について学んだり、最終的には現場で働く国連職員の監修の元
グループでプロジェクトを仕上げるというかなりの強行スケジュール。あたしのグループは監修する人がほとんどいなくてレポートをまとめるのが大変だったけどなんとか完了。プレゼンも無事終わりホッとしました。世界中から学生が集まるのでお互い情報交換したり、文化の違いについて話し合ったりととても濃い時間を過ごすことができたような気がします。さてジュネーブでの一ヶ月は今日で終わりいよいよ明日から南フランスで6週間のミニ留学が始まります！

One of our (many) intense meetings in working groups　グループでミーティング中

Study break at the open cinema!　長い長い一日の終わりはオープンシネマにてみんなでピクニック

世界気象機関にてみんなでランチ

研修中は毎日33℃以上の夏日真っ盛り。毎晩ルマン湖沿いでみんなで涼んでました

研修中一番仲が良くてよくご飯食べに行ったりしてました。左からチェコ人、ドイツ人、あたし、イラン人

It's show time!! (video interviews)　プレゼン前日。グループワークの総まとめとしてインタビューされています　笑

Night time at the UN... yes I'm done with my work now　プレゼン前夜は10時までかかってまとめてました。あー疲れた　汗

My tired eyes..最後に研修修了証書をいただきました

UNCTAD presentors... we're done!　ドイツ人とあたしがグループリーダーだったのでプレゼン担当。無事終わりました

Oh LAMA, how I'll miss you! 

Summer School at University of Geneva: CSR

It's been a whirlwind these past 2 weeks so I was unable to update at all!
Basically I was taking a summer school program at my school for an intensive course on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). I can write an entire essay on the topic so I won't go into details but to be very brief. Also, there's many schools of thought please don't quote me on any of this. I am just trying to give a very general overall broad concept so people with no knowledge (aka my mother) is able to understand it a bit better CSR comes from the concept that business can no longer function with just the goal of making profit. Instead they must integrate economic, social, and environmental aspects while addressing shareholders and business expectations at the same time.

Therefore, there's a greater need for businesses to take in consideration of society and the environment in order for them to succeed in the longer run. For example, running a business without taking environmental aspects into consideration will end up in pollution damage. Though they may make profit business wise, they will come under severe criticism from other stakeholders, hurting them in the end.

 Hence businesses today try to incorporate CSR in many forms into their business plan.  For example, have you ever seen companies that promote doing charity? This is the most common form of CSR. On a more advanced level, there are companies that incorporate sustainable measures into their business plan such as IKEA selling hand made baskets from Thailand made in partnership with an NGO. Sorry these are very bad examples, I'm sure you can find much better examples with a quick Google search.

I was very blessed that our school has offered us to meet with many different agencies and companies to hear what their initiatives and work they have been doing in terms of CSR. We've gone everywhere from the UN to Nestlé to P&G, hearing amazing stories on how each organization is trying to implement CSR within its own business/organizational framework. Studying about sustainable development, it certainly has been a wonderful chance to learn more about how the concepts we've learned are being applied in the real world. It's not perfect and there's still a lot of work that needs to be done on CSR but I am hopeful about how it's going to continue bringing change into our society on many different levels

Meeting at the UN

UN guided tour

UNICEF visit

ILO visit

Nestlé visit

Final presentation session at the UN

Final reception

Final results

  

Beautiful view from atop of the UN

Groupie!

With few of our classmates, professor and coordinator. Thank you for a lovely time!