Insight and Innovation

Internships in the Global Development Studies (GDS) concentration can require critical and creative thought at the nerve centers of international problem-solving. 

In summer 2017, Kirtimay Pendse ’19 interned with the Department of Program Partnerships, Donor Relations, and Innovations — a new department within the United Nations Joint Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) — at its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. 

“UNAIDS basically runs on funds from governments, collaborative organizations, and large private donors,” Pendse says. “My responsibilities were to create and update donor profiles with information about how UNAIDS can maintain better relations with each donor and how the agency can do better work within donors’ countries of choice.” 

Pendse, a native of New Delhi, also participated in UNAIDS’ biannual meeting of the Program Coordinating Board, which attracts donors worldwide to agency headquarters.

“I was involved with department preparations and then as an observer,” Pendse says. “Being in a high level executive meeting within the U.N. was a very cool experience.”

Collaborative Template

Students concentrating in GDS can choose to do an internship or an extensive research project. Pendse pursued a research project within the context of his UNAIDS internship.

“I collaborated with a researcher at UNAIDS to conduct a literature review for public-private partnerships, which is part of the ‘innovations’ aspect of the department,” Pendse says. “I analyzed a specific partnership for what went well and what they thought could have been done better. We created a template in the department for doing such work.”  

Professional Insight

Pendse says his first big research project in a professional setting provided “one of the biggest defining experiences” of his internship. “Approaching a paper within a professional context was significantly different from how I approached assignments in college,” he says.

“Working with people who have extensive experiences within this field added a lot of value to my GDS courses and the academic preparation in my mind,” he says. “Now when I’m sitting in a classroom for GDS, having seen how it played out for professionals who have been in the field for 15–20 years, I have an idea of what comes afterward.”

Interdisciplinary Glue

Pendse credits GDS with having a major impact on how he thinks critically about his double major of economics and religious studies.

“That combination is pretty rare, and it was sort of hard for me to see where those two fields come together,” he says. “I think that’s where GDS has helped me.

“I see myself entering the international development consulting industry, and a lot of things I’ve learned within religious studies and economics come together finally because there are issues of conflict that involve both,” Pendse says. “When I combine these two in my head, GDS is the glue that holds these two interests together for me.”