The Boar & the Bear
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The Boar & The Bear Volume 1II, Summer 2016-Spring 2017 Inside this Issue: Carvet Tang’s Internship 1 - 3 arvet Tang talks about her summer internship in C Germany with the American Chamber of Commerce for First Year Seminar Russian 4 Germany. Fall Events: Marathon Reading 5 Thanks to Caerus, the God of Opportunity Faculty News 6 and Luck, I received an offer from Ernst Oktoberfest 7 & Young (EY) Germany last summer to Interview with Kimberly Annas 8 - 9 do an internship in Germany. Ernst & Russian News 10 Young, is headquartered in London and Guest Column Hanna Randall 11 one of the “Big Four” accountant firms in Interview with the world. It was an exciting opportunity, David Burch 12 - 13 Research News because I could not imagine I was able to Dr. McAllister 14 - 15 get a paid internship offer from EY Frankfurt am Main Germany, especially from a country other than the one I am pursuing a college degree in and my home country. junior student majoring in Accountancy and minoring in German at Wake Forest University. As I have decided to do a business trek in the future, the poster of the AmCham internship Program caught Page 2 my attention. The application process was a bit complicated for me as an international student, since I needed to apply for a work visa. So, I flew alone from GSO to Atlanta to get a visa. But I was glad I did that, since it was an essential step for me to work in Germany for the whole summer. Right at “ I felt like the beginning of the spring term last year, I was contacted by the manager of being in a big the US tax department at EY Germany, and I then received an offer and the family” corresponded contract after I finished my phone interview. The whole process was exciting, but I did have worries, because to do an internship in another country and speaking a different language must be challenging. However, I also realized that I should take this opportunity. And then, mein Abenteuer began My workdays Not until I arrived at Frankfurt airport did I recognize that I was going to stay in this awesome city for three months. The busy scenes in downtown make the Happy hour is part of the job! city alive. I was fortunate to find an apartment-hotel in downtown Frankfurt (though it’s pretty expensive). It’s on die Zeil Straße which is the busiest and most popular area in downtown. I was really nervous on the first day of my internship, not to mention that EY is one of the biggest companies that all business students love to go to. And since it was right after my sophomore year, I didn’t have the chance to have a Tax course. But all colleagues and managers in the office said a lot of encouraging words to me and taught me how to manage files, manipulate Tax system and prepare Tax returns. I felt like being in a big family, and we went out together sometimes for a meal or a Live escape game. I was assigned one specific project to work on, and I learned a lot of things Page 3 during the time. I was excited every morning of the work days, because I knew I would definitely learn something new each day. To ask questions was really a good way to get things done well and efficiently. At first, the German-written files were a hindrance to understand; however, I would say that it helped my German-speaking a lot. I studied a lot from the accessible documents by myself in order to know the project and task assignments better. Carvet’s place of work: Ernst & Young One of my favorite parts of working at EY Germany was the “Happy hours” Frankfurt am Main after work. Employees can leave work one hour early and enjoy the free wine and beer in the lobby. There is also a small soccer field outside the building so What is Am Cham? Am Cham is the that people can have a wonderful break with drinks, colleagues and soccer game! American Chamber of Commerce for Germany. Fourteen colleges and My weekends universities in the south- east of the United States The most awesome thing to live in downtown was that there were always fun have formed a consortium with things to do. During weekends, I went to a lot of events like Italienische- Am Cham to offer market-based internships for students of German at Deutsche Woche, Farmer market and some opening events for new clubs. My these universities. Wake Forest University mom visited and spent a month living with me, and we traveled a lot during became a member in 2014, and Carvet Tang was the first student from weekends, holidays and my vocation. The convenient and efficient public WFU to serve an internship with Am transportation system made traveling easy and simple. We went to Heidelberg, Cham. Three of our German majors and minors will Munich, Salzburg and some small towns around Frankfurt. I love to visit serve an internship in the summer of 2017. historical buildings and attractions, and Germany is absolutely a great place to travel around. Besides, I enjoyed the free entrances to several museums and galleries in Frankfurt by simply showing my EY badge. Language is the most wonderful thing in the world. To learn one new language makes you able to know a culture by yourself, and it can also widen your career choices. Good Luck! The Boar & The Bear Page 4 New First Year Seminar: “Unraveling the Riddle of Russia” Dr. Clark taught a new First Year Seminar in the spring semester 2017: “In the Spring 2017 semester I taught the FYS "Unraveling the Riddle of Every semester our Department offers interesting Russia: Contemporary Russian Culture and Society." I've taught versions of First Year Seminars. Some this class before, but because we discuss a lot of current events in the course, examples of past and present it changes every semester. This makes it interesting to teach every time. FYS are: The basic idea behind the course is that you have to understand Russian his- Blue Grass Music tory and culture in order to understand contemporary Russia. So we have Wide Open Spaces: four thematic blocks to the class: "Russia Past and Present, East and West," The Frontier and American about pre-Revolutionary Russian history, "(Post) Soviet Russia," about the National Identity Soviet Union and its collapse, "Russia's War on Terror," about the Chechen wars, and "Russia in the 21st Century," about contemporary issues. Each Newer German History in Documents, Movies, and block has a book that we spend several weeks reading, and then we cap off Literature each block by watching a film and then holding a roundtable discussion about it. Although during the first half of the semester we focus on history, we al- Fairy Tales: Grimm, Disney, and ways tie it back to current events, so that for example during the first block Beyond we study Kievan Rus', and even read excerpts from the Primary Chronicle, a In Cold Blood: Examining the medieval chronicle about the House of Ryurik and the rise of Kiev, and then Psychopath in Literature, Film, we connect that to what is currently happening between Russia and Ukraine. and Television This is a really fun class to teach for a number of reasons, but I think my fa- The Myth of the Dragonslayer vorite thing about it is that I want the students to move from "content con- Myths and Monsters sumers" to "content generators." So they get to spend a lot of the class time doing things like participating in debates, giving mini-presentations, and leading the roundtable discussions. They also each do a big research paper Be cool and on a topic of their choice, and they write the final exam questions! The last week of class is devoted to the students talking about their research projects and their exam questions, so that they can share with each other what they've learned. I'm always very impressed by how thoughtful and insightful they are, and I really enjoy reading their papers and listening to their debates and roundtable discussions.” WANT TO KNOW WHAT PUTIN IS THINKING? take a FYS with us! “UNRAVELLING THE RIDDLE OF RUSSIA” The Boar & The Bear Fall Events: Marathon Reading! Some pictures from the Reading Visiting German Professor Rory Bradley organized a quite unique event in November 2016: a Marathon Reading! Dr. Bradley: ““In the spring of my life, and in the full enjoyment of unimpaired vigor, and of dearly bought experience, do I stop, to look back on the path I went, or, rather, was led. I behold, in all the mazy labyrinths of my career, a visible hand, that, perhaps, is also extended over many of my friends, guides them in the dark, and has wove the thread which they, in careless security, fancy to spin themselves.” So begins the Gothic novel Horrid Mysteries, a translation of Karl August Grosse’s novel Der Genius, which unfolds an intricate and meandering story of secret societies and mysterious rites, passionate loves and violent deaths, hidden knowledge and forbidden secrets. On November 9, 2016, a group of undergraduate students and faculty members took turns reading aloud from this 700-page book on a small stage in the Campus Ground coffee shop at a marathon reading event sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of German and IPLACe. For 10 hours, from 10 am to 8 pm, readers worked their way through over 350 pages of the book, alternating between the German original and the English translation.