coeds at cald
The usually all-male CALD Secretariat got a feminine touch when two coeds from leading Philippine universities participated in CALD’s summer internship program from April to May. The 180-hour internship saw Guita Gopalan of the Ateneo de Manila University and Paula Nea de Vera of Miriam College doing the transcription of the two CALD activities in Jakarta, Indonesia, as well as some research on political parties in select Asian countries. Both also took on other administrative work at the Secretariat, which supervised their internship. At the time, Gopalan was an incoming Development Studies senior. She has also been active in the Ateneo Glee Club and works part-time as a voice instructor. De Vera, meanwhile, was also an incoming senior, majoring in International Studies. The previous year, she participated in the Japan Language and Culture Program in Tokyo, Japan. She is an active member of several organizations at her school.
Internship
In her report that she submitted at the close of her internship, de Vera wrote that she learned to treat all tasks as important. But she said that what she valued most among all her experiences during her internship were the freewheeling discussions everyone engaged in over lunch. According to de Vera, the informal discussions made her realize that her understanding of liberalism had been “limited.” Now, she wrote, she knows that “liberalism not only emphasizes on individual rights and equality of opportunities but also entails a certain responsibility. And such responsibility would mean accepting the consequences of one’s own actions. It is a principle of learning by trial and error and of self-improvement.”
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