Last Wednesday, I had my first day of work at the Universidad de Chile Faculty of Economy and Business (Facultad de Economía y Negocios -- FEN). I liked it so went back to have a second and third day Thursday and Friday. It was fun. The End.
Just kidding! It's not the end. It's the beginning! And I am immensely content and excited about it. From my first day on the job I have felt nothing but friendliness. I have been included and welcomed heartily by everyone from my supervisor, Stephanie (the Head of the International Relations office), to the director of my office and the director of Student Affairs on campus, all the way to the students, tech people and other staff peoples. I have a university email with an email signature that looks spiffy and includes the university logo (took forever and a day for the tech guy and I to do), my desk arrived on Friday, my phone is in the building, and my computer is a week and a half to its arrival. AND I will get my own, bilingual, fanciful business cards!!!!! (I've never had official work-related, personalized business cards before). And I can join the staff four days a week Zumba class after work for only $10-ish US dollars a month. HAPPINESS!!!!
And the best part is that I am included, valued by my supervisor and coworkers, treated as an equal and the directors mentioned above both told me they were very happy to have me working here. YAY! I feel like I'm dreaming and am tickled with joy. But details:
I work with Stephanie, the Head of the International Relations office, and Soledad, the Outgoing Student Exchange Coordinator (she works with Chilean students that want to study abroad). My technical position name is the Incoming Student Exchange Coordinator so I will eventually be in charge of assisting and welcoming the students coming from around the world to study at FEN. The three of us semi-share two assistants who are Chilean students here at the university. Jaime is amazingly talented in everythin and most often works with Stephanie and I, and Nacho (short for Ignacio) is also wonderfully helpful and usually works with Soledad (although he is going abroad in September to France). María (can't remember the second part of her name) is replacing Nacho for the semester and seems really nice but I don't know her all that well yet (she's also just learning the ropes herself).
Once the office-space finishes being re-organized (they are giving us cubicle walls to separate departments), I will have my desk next to Soledad's facing Stephanie's walled office with the two assistant desks behind us. I promise pictures when that happens as currently without my computer and with the existing random assortment of desks it is not too impressive nor clear on the organization. We are located on the second floor of building Z, which is called this because it is actually built in the shape of a "z" on its side, and are located in the middle, diagonal portion of the Z.
The campus itself is fairly small, made of up our building, the main Hall, building Placa, and the Tower which is like the administrative building (a CRAZY architect built it as it has a confusing zig-zag of stairs and half-floors going up the center of it). We are located next to the Faculty of Architecture and are over the fence from the Universidad de Chile Student Association that is the seat of government for the student protest leaders. Needless to say, when there are protests, all but one of the campus gates are closed for that reason. :D Fortunately, the campus is about a 7 minute walk from the metro Universidad Catolica, which is where I got off when I was working at the travel company so my one hour-ish commute has not changed much (except that now I go south instead of north from the metro exit).
So far my three days have been fairly administrative and training as the semester has yet to begin. However, our 108 students have already begun to arrive from their more than 17 different originating countries. This semester we will have at least 29 students from France, 24 students from Germany, 13 from the US, 10 from Holland, 6 students from Colombia, 4 each from Spain and Denmark, 3 students each from Finland and México, and 1 to 2 students each from Sweden, Portugal, Poland, Italy, Vietnam, Israel, Belgium, Argentina, and India.
This upcoming Wednesday is the Exchange Student Orientation so really this week all the fun and craziness begins! This is the biggest group of students that the school has ever had so it will be exciting! I will be assisting Stephanie with preparations for orientation day and then in attending the loooong line of students waiting to meet with us to add or drop classes or ask questions. During the rest of the semester I will: answer student questions, welcome whatever international visitors come to the school, send off transcripts from last semester, plan semester activities (welcome and good-bye party, etc), accept applications and prepare for next semester, and assist to plan and chaperone the occasional educational trip.
Every summer and occasionally during the year, groups of students and their professors will come to the school for an educational field trip or intense semester. Most of these consist of classes in the mornings with special tours and talks in the afternoons. These outings are what our office gets to chaperone. Last Friday, for example, I was invited to join Soledad in chaperoning the trip to the Chile central bank (Banco Central de Chile) to learn about Chile's financial system and walk through the beautiful historic building. I can tell that in this job I will quickly get back up to par on economics and business related topics. :D
Last small but important technicality/detail is that my visa papers are yet to be entered into the system at the office of Extranjeria. But tomorrow is the last day of the time-frame they said it would take so I plan on calling to inquire tomorrow afternoon. As soon I have my the document that confirms my visa papers are processing, I can negotiate and sign a contract. And when my visa finally comes and I am able to renew my national ID card, they will be able to pay me (which hopefully will be in not too long). Will let you all know when I get news.
So that's the latest from Santiago de Chile! I hope you all have a wonderful week and that you enjoy your warm temperatures. We can see our breath inside the house so by that I mean it's cold here. But not below zero, thankfully. We did have hail the other day though! Big hugs to you all!
P.S. For more info and visuals, feel free to check out the university website in English: http://fen.uchile.cl/index_eng.html, and the Office of International Relations website: http://international.fen.uchile.cl/ (this is to be improved as the semester progresses).
No comments:
Post a Comment