Zdravstvuyte!

(Russian: May y’all be in a good health!)

What a blessing it was to work in the American Geographical Society (AGS) the autumn of 2015 and beginning of winter 2016! As the oldest Geographical organization in the Western Hemisphere, AGS has much to offer to the one who is interested in traditional geography as well as both global and regional contemporary geographical trends.

                During the fall semester the interns had an opportunity to work with the emerging companies of geography-oriented sector, including GIS, human geography, remote sensing, human trafficking, ecological, conversational and many other commercial and not-for-profit companies. It was very helpful to implement our geographical skills both technical and humanitarian to update AGS website with daily articles ‘Company Spotlight’, ‘Nonprofit Spotlight’, ‘Council News’, and ‘Map of the Week’. Another useful responsibility was to update social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and UBIQUE) with the latest geography-related news and apprises. This duty helped us to stay informed and enlarge our common geo-knowledge, as well as being able to stay multitasking.

                Throughout the fall symposium “Geography 2050” we were introduced to event-planning procedures, including keeping up presenters’ database, creating flyers, distributary materials as well as community outreach techniques by the ways of using social media tools. The event itself helped the participants to expand their professional networks, with the opportunity to find a potential career path.

                The most important element that AGS offered the Scholar-Intern is to work with very talented people inside the office: the Executive Director Dr. John Konarski III, Community Outreach Manger Ms. Selene Lawrence, Scholar-Intern Mr. Jesse Miller, and Volunteer Ms. Sophie Collings, as well as some AGS’s Councils and members. During the free of work times we had key discussions about central geographical problems,including interesting political trends, news and discourses from various points of view.

AGS had great past and greater future, all the best wishes to AGS members, councils and staff!

Written by Timur Pozhidaev, 1/5/2015.