World of Work Fellows announced for summer 2011

Stipends of $3,500 awarded to 60 Brandeis students

Turesky Photo/Mike Lovett

Marisa Turesky ’13, Leigh Nusbaum '11

The World of Work (WOW) Internship Funding Program fellows for 2011 have been announced, awarding stipends of $3,500 to 60 Brandeis students who are pursuing unpaid summer internships.

By eliminating financial barriers, WOW, which is run through the Hiatt Career Center, encourages students to follow their career passions, develop new skills, build upon their academics and explore the world of work.

The WOW program’s guiding principles — anywhere in the world, any career field, any organization — mean that students can identify a wide range of possibilities that support their individual career exploration.

“We received many strong applications, and are especially excited for this year’s group of recipients,” says Jackie Kopyt, WOW program coordinator and assistant director of career development at Hiatt. 

This year’s fellows represent a diverse mix of interests, passions, skills and backgrounds. “Recipients will travel to 13 states and 14 countries to intern in over 40 industries including architecture, international business, media, government, legal, museums, scientific research and real estate,” says Kopyt.

Leigh Nusbaum ’11 will travel to Istanbul, Turkey, to work as an intern at the Intercultural Dialogue Platform (KADIP), a branch of the Journalists and Writers Foundation (GYV). KADIP’s goal is to promote dialogue and relationships among the three Abrahamic faiths and various ethnic groups within Turkey.

“Given my upbringing in an interfaith family (Jewish and Christian) and my Islamic and middle-eastern studies major, this is a very exciting internship opportunity for me,” says Nusbaum.

Nusbaum first heard about KADIP while on a cross-cultural trip to Turkey with her family in June 2010 when she visited GYV’s headquarters. Leigh said that she was impressed by KADIP’s work and inquired about internship opportunities for the following summer.

“It's hard to believe that I will be jetting back to Istanbul this summer, but without the WOW, it would not have been possible,” Nusbaum says.

Nusbaum hopes that her WOW experience in Turkey will further prepare her for a future career in the State Department, working on the peace process between the Arab states and Israel.

Hiatt’s WOW internship funding program also includes the Judith Cossin Berkman ’59 Endowed Internship Fund in Social Work and the Louis D. Brandeis Legacy Fund for Social Justice, which awards 30 fellowships to students pursuing internships at organizations that work to reduce social inequalities.

As a Louis D. Brandeis Social Justice WOW fellow, Marisa Turesky ’13 will intern in Washington, D.C., at Share Our Strength, a leading national organization dedicated to ending childhood hunger in the United States through public-private partnerships and education initiatives.

An anthropology and women’s & gender studies double-major, Turesky has been very involved with food sustainability work both on the campus and regional level through The Real Food Challenge and The Food Project. Her WOW grant will help her to continue to explore this career path.

Turesky says that she looks forward to “building relationships with law-makers and nonprofits to gain support for and raise awareness of food justice issues both at Brandeis and in the greater Waltham community.”

Turesky will specifically be working on Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign, researching congress members and legislation related to child nutrition and poverty, writing articles for the No Kid Hungry blog and attending hearings and other special events.

“By learning methods of effective change and community partnerships this summer, I will be much more successful in my future career in academia, in which I plan to research and teach about cross-cultural sustainable food practices,” Turesky says. “Receiving the WOW grant shows me that [Brandeis] supports my efforts in pursuing my passion and expanding my knowledge of issues with which I have been very involved for a long time.”

The WOW program is unique because it requires more than just a great internship. Applicants must identify concrete personal, academic, and career goals that they can achieve within the set responsibilities of their internship.

The fellows also receive Hiatt staff mentors who help them to track the progress on their learning objectives throughout the summer. Upon completion of the internship, fellows reflect on their summer experiences through written self-assessments and a campus-wide presentation.

Hiatt provides over $200,000 in funding for summer internships for the fourth consecutive year. View this year’s recipients.