Anastasiya Kolosovsky

Hello everyone! My name is Anastasiya. I'm graduating from SIS with a BA in International Studies and an academic focus on Peace, Global Security, and Conflict Resolution, as well as a regional focus on the Middle East. I'm also finishing with a Minor in Arabic from the College of Arts and Sciences. This spring, I was a PL for the GLOBE Living Learning Community, for which I helped to plan activities and events for second-year students interested in language learning to help them engage with different cultures.

I decided to become a Program Leader because I wanted to help students interact with the many opportunities that DC offers for going to cultural events, visiting embassies, and trying foods from different cultures. It can be intimidating to go to events like this alone, and sometimes events can be hard to find, so being a Program Assistant allowed me to make it easier for students to pursue their interests in languages and cultures. I also loved the community aspect of the program, because it brings students together based on their love for language learning without separating everyone based on their language of interest. This was probably my favorite part of being a Program Leader, because I got to try food from all over the world even though my studies at AU focused on Arabic and the Middle East.

As a Program Leader, I got to further develop some of my professional skills, specifically event coordination and graphic design. The GLOBE Program organizes monthly program dinners, for which I needed to communicate with students to ensure that they know about the dinners and get an attendance estimate. Events off campus were more complicated because, when I organized a visit to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia, I needed to coordinate based on the availability of the embassy and the students, as well as how we would travel to the embassy together. In my role, I also got to practice my graphic design abilities by making engaging monthly newsletters to tell students about upcoming program events, which I really enjoyed because they were a creative outlet for me.

My advice to future Program Leaders would be to open up events to the whole AU community. GLOBE is meant to be a community for people with similar interests, but not one that is closed off from everyone else. By inviting other Chinese language students to the Chinese Community Dinner, or other Arabic language students to the Embassy of Saudi Arabia, students can connect with more of their peers and learn from each other. Also, make sure that you have fun in this role, because if you enjoy your work, the students will feel it and enjoy the events more too!