It has been almost ten months since I wrote this blog post when I ended my summer internship as an Open Content Curator intern. Afterwards, I moved on to become a part-time OER service intern, whose term is, however, ending this week. Now that coming to Argyle House on Friday and spending a day away from my academic work almost as a little break in a week have been ingrained in my daily life, it is hard to imagine what my schedule will feel like from next week. Whilst I was nervous at the beginning about balancing my Honour’s study and work as someone who had not worked during semester times before, the flexibility about when and where to work was extremely helpful for easily balancing study and work.

 

During ten months, I was able to do various kinds of work, such as the Their Finest Hour collaborative project, social media research, and joining a conference in Cork. I am particularly pleased to share that I managed to publish more OERs on TES – including ‘Investigating Edinburgh’s Geological Past’ series, ‘Weather, Climate and Global Warming’, ‘Birds of Midlothian’ ‘Identifying Trees & Their Benefits with Card Games’. Uploading all the files on the website while making sure that there is absolutely no mistake in descriptions and files is a little daunting but a rewarding part of my role – as I can see that our work is out and stays there, awaiting to flourish in classrooms as if they were small seeds for future. While the work of OER creation is for common good, which can often get relegated to voluntary work, one can get paid for this internship – an immense advantage for a student for sure. This combination is, I think, the rarity of this internship that I really enjoyed, and I am grateful for the ISG’s commitment to encourage students to get involved in Open Education.

 

Working for more than a year in total, a benefit of a long-term internship was that I was able to see the changes in the ISG. From changes in our office like the flood to the opening of floor K for ‘new ways of working’ and various events including the opening of the Bessie Watson lecture room on the International Women’s Day, it was great to see how things happen and grow within a big organisation and change the organisation itself slowly. And of course, as someone who seeks to work in a university environment in the future, having chances to know university from a staff’s perspective both in and out of the semester time was a valuable insight for me.

 

Also, throughout the time, I was able to meet and work with inspirational individuals whose life paths might not have crossed with mine if I had not had an opportunity to participate in the university as an employee. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to work with my managers, Lorna Campbell and Stephanie Charlie Farley, and my colleagues from the School of Geosciences, Kay Douglas and Colin Graham, and other interns in our OER service team. Now that I will be away, I would like to stay in touch with open education at a personal level, for example by writing and translating Wikipedia in my spare time.

 

Lastly, I wholeheartedly wish the OER team to continue to flourish, now and in the future with new interns when they arrive. And bye, for now, Argyle House!

 

Header: A view to be missed, for sure! – Edinburgh Castle from Argyle House, Mayu Ishimoto, 2024, CC BY.