Critical Thinking and Collaboration NATO INTERNSHIP PROVIDES NEW SKILLS AND CONNECTIONS

By Ryleigh Taylor

Throughout my internship with the NATO Innovation Hub, I have been working with a group of interns in order to build a “critical thinking” course that many, particularly military, professionals take when collaborating with the Innovation Hub. My role for this internship is to collaborate with different professors from around the world who provide me with content that they deem important to the topic of teaching others to “think critically” and to come up with test questions and important details that can be used in order to make up assessments for the twenty-hour course.

The first half of this internship was dedicated to helping create the NATO Innovation Conference which was held on January 17, and hosted 1,500 attendees from around the world. I was a co-host and moderated the plenary and closing sessions of the conference, interacting with the speakers and being able to communicate with them through a weeks-long process. I met many new people and collaborated with many, particularly with a large number of German professionals. Following this experience, I have gained many new connections, new collaboration skills, and new problem-solving skills, particularly in the I.T. front.

As a political science and international studies double major, I am extremely interested in learning more about how different countries work together to create and maintain peaceful relations with one another, and thus far within this internship, I have been able to collaborate with many from different countries, learning the viewpoints of these different places, in both domestic and international issues.