Friday, the International Center offered a game of trivia for their Coffee Hour series. The IC team put together a small Jeopardy board on-screen with varying topics such as WSU history, world geography and IC knowledge.

An intense game of UNO followed the trivia rounds, the rules of which were explained to a few international students.

Each player starts with seven cards in their hand, and the goal is to get down to zero cards. Players take turns playing cards that are the same color or number. They must draw a card if they have neither. Once you get to one card, you must say UNO or risk drawing two more cards if others notice. The first player to zero cards wins the game.

This trivia and UNO coffee hour are one of many that the event team has planned this semester.

“My favorite part [of being an intern] are these events every Friday because this is the only time I get to interact with a lot of other students,” said Chiara Edah, sophomore international business (lowercase – SR) major and events team intern for the IC.

According to the IC eNewsletter, they are also looking for unpaid interns for the Fall of 2022.

Edah said that working at the IC didn’t feel like a stressful job and that the workplace was easygoing.

“We have weekly meetings every Monday for the events team.” Edah said. “We come up with ideas based on talking to other interns or students to see what they would be interested in.”

She said that the team tries to make things fun while also tying events back to cultural practices.

The IC has six different internship teams. Each is tasked with something that makes the IC’s daily operations and core programs function.

“It’s great to meet new people and work together as a group,” said Bailee Kramer, senior advertising major and Engage the World intern at the IC. “It’s also fun attending the events if I’m able to and it’s great experience to add to my resume.”

One of the internships teams includes the Campus Friends program, which pairs international and domestic students together to have one-on-one conversations. The idea is to help international students improve their communication skills, according to the IC website.

How Campus Friends bond is up to them. They could make meals for each other, try local restaurants, attend campus events or just get a cup of coffee together.

Engage the World is another internship program with the IC that reaches far and wide for WSU students and the Pullman community.

“Engage the World presenters deliver dynamic presentations on their international experience to WSU classes and in the local community. We can customize presentations for each unique situation,” according to the IC website.

The Friends and Family program manager helps international students meet the community and show them what daily life is like in the U.S. This internship is not accepting applications, but more information will be out soon, according to the IC page.

Lastly, the International Dependent Support manager helps the spouses and children of international students.

“Many spouses will not be fluent in English and due to visa restriction are not able to work. They will often have difficulty communicating with others and completing simple tasks in a new country in a new language. This can lead to spouses feeling lonely and isolated,” according to the IC Internships page.

The Events Team and the Marketing Team work together to keep the IC functioning and fresh. The Coffee Hour series is a sample of these teams’ focus during the semester.

“I saw the ad for the position in our business emails. And then you just go to the website and fill out the application and come in for the interview,” Edah said.

Applications can be found on the IC Internships website.

Another opportunity for students to help other students is with the International Admissions Ambassadors. Their job is to help prospective students and applicants throughout the admissions process at WSU.

Ambassadors answer and send messages to potential students, create, share, maintain and promote social media content and attend training and recruitment events, according to the job description.

The International Admissions Ambassador positions can also be found online.

“Being able to work in teams professionally is something I gained here, like team working skills,” Edah said. “I was able to discover a lot of things about WSU that I didn’t know before, like all the different organizations, because I’m reaching out to them to organize events.”

Similar to Edah, Kramer said the experience she has gotten this past semester working for the IC allowed her to experience more at WSU.

“I learned some great experiences with outreach… event planning… engagement and retention and also Cody [Assistant Director of Retention Specialist for the IC] is teaching me how to manage the funds for the IC and how to report that to HR… so we can have more events,” Kramer said.

Stay on the lookout for more from the Coffee Hour series. On April 8, the IC will be hosting a “Desserts from Around the World” event.