Every semester, the Pacific Council offers students and recent graduates the opportunity to work alongside our staff of non-profit and foreign policy professionals. Junior Fellows help plan events, create content for the website, and interact with Council members.

We interviewed the Fall 2016 fellows to learn more about what brought them to the Pacific Council, their experience as fellows, and their interests in international affairs.

Communications Junior Fellow Claire Bond is a senior at the University of Southern California (USC) studying international relations and French; Development Junior Fellow Jamie Skiba graduated from DePaul University with a degree in history and is working towards a Master’s in Public Policy from USC; and Events Junior Fellow Hanna Jolkovsky graduated from USC in May 2016 with double degrees in history and international relations and a minor in Korean Studies. 

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What made you interested in international affairs? 

Jamie Skiba: I wasn’t interested in international affairs until recently. I always wanted to go abroad, and my family didn’t travel much outside of America. I really wanted to teach in China and I lived there for a year. There was a cool thing I was a part of called Mentor Walks, which would pair women up with other women with similar interests. Since I was interested in education, I was paired with a woman who had designed her own nonprofit in China.

During this time I read Malala’s book about fighting for girls’ education. Reading about the education of women abroad is how I made the connection between my past experiences as a teacher, so I would say I’m most interested in international education issues.

Hanna Jolkovsky: I’ve always focused on the Pacific Rim, so that was my area of concentration for both my history major and my international relations major. I’m half Korean and studied abroad in Korea, where I focused a lot on the security issues surrounding the Koreas. In the future I would be interested in looking at international law.

Claire Bond: I was actually pre-med for a year and a half before I realized that wasn’t for me in terms of a career path. I took an introductory international relations class, and after just two weeks I knew it was what I wanted to study. I studied abroad in Paris, and went on to intern at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, spending seven months in Europe. I had a keen interest in the European region, and having the opportunity to learn more about Central and Eastern Europe, the Visegrad group, and attending the NATO Summit cemented my interest. 

What do you do as a Pacific Council Junior Fellow? 

Skiba: I’m currently researching funding for the Pacific Council’s water scarcity project. I like working as a Junior Fellow because I’m not sure what career field I want to go into, but this position has given me some direction and the means to develop a broad skill set. 

Jolkovsky: I worked a lot on Members Weekend for the Events Department. I wrote up bios of speakers and panel descriptions, and it’s been fascinating to be able to reach out to experts and ask them questions. On a daily basis I research women experts in different fields of international study. Working here has given me a lot of clarity and direction on what I want to do with my international relations and history degrees. 

Bond: In the Communications Department, the day-to-day is always shifting because social media trends change all the time, so there’s always something to do. I get to write for Global Beat every week, which is fun because it’s great practice synthesizing the news and picking stories that are most interesting and pertinent. I really enjoy writing for the website because I can point and say, "I wrote that and people actually read it!" The writing work I’ve been doing has definitely improved my ability to write succinctly. 

What has been your most memorable Pacific Council experience?

All: Members Weekend!

Skiba: I met so many interesting people at the conference. I really enjoyed the debate about America’s future on the world stage, and the Jonathan Tepperman panel. He was a really engaging speaker.

Bond: I think for me, the coolest part was seeing people whom I had heard about or read their work and being able to hear them speak in person. It was amazing to talk to them, because they seem like these distant figures, but they’re normal people who are totally willing to talk to you! I told one speaker that I had just read her article for a class, and she asked me what I thought about it. Working with the Council helped me realize that I do want to go back to school at some point, and it’s opened up my mind. 

Jolkovsky: There were so many amazing panels! It was like Disneyland. I had a hard time picking which ones I most wanted to go to because the entire conference was fascinating. 

What’s your favorite international travel story? 

Jolkovsky: When I was studying in Iceland with a USC group, we spent a summer at the Arctic Council and met members of the Icelandic government. We saw an important Icelandic politician speak earlier in the day, and that night we saw her again at the local pool! It was mind-blowing how small and inclusive Iceland is. It’s a country with a population of around 320,000. 

Skiba: Once, when I was in Peru, I got really sick with I think altitude sickness. I had a bad fever and was really tired but I couldn’t sleep. I wanted something like Nyquil, but a woman at the pharmacy was having trouble understanding me. After a bit, she wrote something down on a pad in English: she had written, "Xanax?" That was a bit more than I was looking for so I declined.

Bond: My most interesting experience was being at the NATO Summit. The White House needed some extra hands on deck so they borrowed interns from the U.S. Embassy and I got to be part of the official delegation. I got to go to both of President Obama’s press conferences and see him talk twice. He spoke once in a joint presser with the Polish President Andrej Duda and once at the end when he gave closing remarks. Earlier that day I got a picture at the podium he spoke at, so you can say I warmed up his podium and passed him some good speaking vibes.

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Read more about the Pacific Council's Junior Fellowship program.