Back in the Swing COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog

Back in the Swing COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY - SIPA Admissions Blog During the summer the SIPA building is a very quiet place.   The reason for this is that we do not offer summer courses.   Each student that graduates from SIPA will have a minimum of 30 weeks of professional development experience.   15 weeks come through an internship and 15 weeks come through a workshop. Students are responsible for finding their own internships, but we offer a lot of assistance through Career Services, faculty, alumni, and current students.   We want students to be able to go anywhere in the world to complete their internship and thus we do not offer summer courses so that students can focus full time on professional development and resume building.   Workshops are group projects composed of 5-6 students working for an outside client.   The workshops are set up by faculty and administrators and students pick from a predetermined list.   Workshops take place during the academic year. Back to the point of this entry . . . the quiet atmosphere of SIPA will cease next Monday as we welcome new students for Orientation and the following week returning students will be back for the start of classes.   Once classes start the building buzzes with activity each and every day.   It is typical for there to be 10-15 events each week featuring amazing speakers.   Here is just a taste of what will be featuring as the semester starts. We will have Leaders in Global Energy lecture series starting on September 15.   Opening remarks will be given by Nabuo Tanaka of the International Energy Agency.   He will be followed by the Portuguese Prime Minister, Jose Socrates, in late September. CH Tung, the first Chief Executive of Hong Kong and one of SIPAs Global Fellows will be speaking on US-China Relations on September 17. EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso will be speaking at the World Leaders Forum on campus and will likely address SIPA students following the main university event. We will have updates on the blog regarding events so stay tuned.