Last Wednesday during International Week, the Big Sky Sun Journal got the chance to interview one of the members of the International Club, Irene Griswold.
Griswold is a senior here at Big Sky and one of the many students who helped put everything together for the annual event, which aims to give all students a broader perspective of the world and the different issues that other places have to deal with.
Read the full interview below to get a better idea of what goes on behind the scenes of International Week.
Ashlynn Lewis: Let’s start off with something simple: why should people join (International Week planning)?
Irene Griswold: I would say International Week, it’s a group of us, most of us are IB diploma candidates and so it’s actually (part of) our CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service) project because to get the diploma, you have to do a CAS project. … but there are some students not in the diploma (program), they just want to help out. I would say if you wanted to join next year, I know being in the diploma program, it’s an opportunity that they (IB teachers) allow. But also, if you just get in contact with Katie DeGrandpre, she was the teacher who really helped us out with this, or Honzel, he helped out a lot, too, getting in contact with them or the upperclassmen doing the diploma, they would allow you to be apart of this experience and help organize the event.
Lewis: How does something like this help with experience in the real world?
Griswold: I think for me personally, being a part of this experience, one: it helps with the logistics part of it, like being part of a group where we’re mostly student-led. So that’s both a challenge but also very rewarding. I’d say it’s really helped me with my teamwork and organizing I’ve had to do, too. Lots of emailing, lots of scheduling, planning, lots of those skills that you definitely use in the real world were utilized in the making of this process. So I think it’s helped in that aspect, it’s been somewhat like a professional event that we’ve hosted, like talking to (documentary) directors and all the people coming in, but I’d also say it just provides me but also all the students a part of this, I would say it provides (us) with a perspective that isn’t usually seen in Big Sky and that’s kind of the underlying goal of this week, to give more of an international mindset for this week and allow students to see things that they wouldn’t normally see at Big Sky or even in Montana.
Lewis: How much longer do you think this thing is going to be around, knowing the current situation with the presidency?
Griswold: I think just the event here at Big Sky hosting International Week, it’s whatever the students want to make it. So we lined up with the Big Sky (Documentary) Film Festival and so we have a lot of those films being shown here, which I’d like to think would continue for a long time. There’s a lot of people in the film industry who like to make films and that’s a big part of Missoula, so I’d like to think that would happen for a while, and then again it’s just very student-led, and so (it will be) whatever the students want to include, so it can look very differently. It just looks the way it does this year because of us students who put it together.
Lewis: Are there any benefits to joining?
Griswold: I think I kind of mentioned it already. It’s very student-led, so it’s working with a set group of students that you wouldn’t normally work with, but I’ve grown to really enjoy my time with those students and I think we work well together. There’s definitely been some challenges but I think it benefits you in a way to kind of prepare you for the next steps and just life in general. You gotta communicate, you gotta organize things. I think to be successful, you have to be well at those skills and it’s kind of hard to learn those right away, you gotta practice those. So I think this event specifically allowed me to work those skills and communicate with others that I wouldn’t normally communicate with and work with them.
Lewis: Was there anything else you wanted to say before we conclude this interview?
Griswold: Just the main goal with International Week was to bring that international mindset to the students at Big Sky and, like I said, that event looked a little different last year, different this year. But I hope it just continues and students kind of appreciate all the hard work that was put into this. Just gaining that knowledge from around the world (through different activities) and through films.
