what all IR students should know // job, classes, freedom

[Music] [Music] well hello my friends it's been quite a while since our last conversation and due to the fact that it still Warrenton and I have some free time I decided to talk with you a little bit more about some stuff which is relevant and important for me and actually I've noticed that there have been several comments on my previous videos about tithing as an international relations student and all the sphere and today I wanted to share with you my experience and first of all I'd like to point out that I'm studying right now in a country in a Western European country so basically the whole system and the whole structure of my studies not very maybe irrelevant and not very well spread in the US and Canada but still I want to share my experience because I feel like the struggle which all international relations student have is the same for every country so today I want to share with you several things which all the students should know before enrolling into any kind of international Asian School and I really hope that people who are applying right now and are waiting for the end of this enrolling campaign will find it useful so let's get started the first thing which I really had no idea about before I entered my university is that we we have so many history classes and if you are going to be an international relations student you really should be ready to study lots of history because basically the whole status is based on history history of international relations history of conflicts history of your country history of the several other countries if you all have a specialization in them actually I don't think that it's appropriate to somehow comment on this fact because it really depends on the present I am a person who does not like studying history too much yeah I know that there is a cliche which says if you do not know your history you have no future but I don't know it's just too much so be prepared be ready and you need to get into every conflict into every detail in order to understand the proper flow of all these events in the past so yeah that's the thing which I really wished I had found out before entering the university another thing which might be very basic but still important is that you have to know languages and I don't know about different States because I feel like it also really depends on the country where you are studying but still is something which is really necessary because you will have to work with people who are unlikely to speak your language only if you are not an American or Canadian citizen so basically you will have to communicate with them and the only way for you to succeed is to know several languages I will not name you the precise number because I feel like the more you know the better but still as for me I am currently studying Italian and I'm currently studying Korean and one more thing I forgotten when I was at school I studied French for six years and now I remember actually nothing but I still can understand the speech of French people and I can read and comprehend everything in the articles for example in any kind of French newspaper and whatever so it really helps me with my status because I have much more sources of information to look through if I'm writing my bachelor thesis or any kind of essay but still yeah I need to like revive this whole French learning process and be finally able to speak and communicate because that's something I really lacked and actually my plan for this year is to finish my French to definitely study German because I am into German and I love this language I love the German culture and all of this and maybe try to start any other new language such as Arab I'm telling you this because it's really important to find some kind of internal strength to make yourself study languages even though every country is different all the ministries of Foreign Affairs have something in common and it basically working with languages working with information in foreign languages so yeah that's it another one another problem or another specific thing which I've learned and which I was surprised about is the number of essays and other written works and the problem with this essays is mainly about the fact that the information in mass media is always distorted so basically when you are writing something you really need to double-check everything and when you are handing it in you just need to cross your fingers and think and hope that the professor will find your position sufficient and well argumented we all are used to just present an information to describe in some facts but you will have to conclude and make proper analysis after presenting these arguments and at something of your own to any kind of your work which I realized only during my last year like this one and now I'm finishing my bachelor thesis and I'm finally understand and why my previous course works were great it really I wouldn't say with low marks but still it was a B it was 82 or 85 and once I had to rewrite it because it contained no analysis it was just pure description of the facts which were written in some history books another thing which might seem trite is something which I also realized only during my third year I would say is that this kind of profession demands from you being well-rounded and well equipped in any kind of sphere you will have to figure out how to solve economic problems how to solve some judicial cases concerning for example International Court of Justice you will have to learn about international law a lot and personally I think that that thing is very useful because now internationally can be established without international law being concerned so yeah and you can find yourself in the position when you feel like you know so many things about everything but you actually know nothing in particular your profession is kind of a mixture of all those things and it might confuse you and it might arouse different mixed feelings as it was for me actually last year I realized that I don't know how to deal with my future job application because the only thing which I can write down there is that I know all the subjects but like can 70% volume so I cannot go into auditing consulting because I'm not an economist and I cannot go to the majority of law firms because I'm not a lawyer and the only thing for me is to figure out how to apply to international companies and that is the last point which I want to make is your future job opportunities I know that maybe in the United States or in in some developed well developed countries it's much easier for students to get accepted to receive any prestigious offer but still when we talk in general it's really difficult to understand who you are and what your profession is basically you have no idea what vacancy to apply to because you will hear a lot during this years that this profession will open any door you will have so many opportunities because you have so much knowledge in different spheres you can be an economist you can be a lawyer it can be an ambassador you can be a representative of and I don't know non-governmental company somewhere rot and all this stuff you will hear this but it's just words and you will never get there you'll answer what to do with your life after you graduate I know one thing which might be also useful for you is that you will have to go to do your masters because without masters you are not considered a proper professional any company you would like to apply to will ask you whether you have a master's or not and if you don't have it they will kindly ask you to finish your studies and then go and apply that's the problem because I have to spend two more years to be a proper professional even though I'm very tired of studying even though I have quite quite a sufficient level of knowledge in this fierce and I will have to like suffer for two more years and revise all the information which I used to studied you in this four years even when you are finishing your master's be ready to face this problem of not knowing where to apply to and how to apply to because the only understandable way for people who finished studying international relations is working for Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been ambassador is being a diplomat but there is also a difficulty with this thing because the number of people who the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is very limited and you are unlikely to get accepted like this at the moment because you will have to wait maybe half a year maybe a year and when you start with your work you will not be sent to any foreign country at first you will have to work in the central apparatus as they call it in in the central system in the system in your country and you will have to do all this unpleasant work of bringing the papers sorting them out of collecting information checking the mass media even being a secretary and just bringing coffee and I'm not complaining because I know that we all have to start from the bottom to get to the top but it's not the bottom I want to start when I've been studying for six years and I've been really digging into this whole difficult system and especially when I get my bachelor with honours it's not something I want to do but you will have to unfortunately and if you succeed and if you are selected to be this lucky one to go abroad and to work there first of all you will have no personal life your whole life will stick to one thing working because you will have to wake up at 4 a.m. when people from the Ministry will call you you will have to work like from I don't know from 9:00 to 9:00 at least as for a very personal side of your life it will be very difficult to find a partner who will be ready to travel with you every 2 or 3 years to change their places of living to change their schedule their routine and just say ok it's been 2 years we've been in Albania let's go to I don't know to what Canada well go into a Canada might be fun at least I mean you can be sent anywhere and if your partner is ambitious and they probably are because after all this suffering and studying for six years your mindset changes a lot and you try to find people who are going to break this brick walls and fight with you the air and likely to follow you because they just want to build their own life and to fulfill their own ambitions and that's the problem and that's the problem of your relations and personal life you will not have it and actually I'm exaggerating right I know many families of diplomats who are fine who are happy but anyways one of these people in a couple had to leave all the goals desires dreams behind and follow the path of another person which is difficult and not all the people are ready to sacrifice their own life in order to fulfill this blue dream of yours to become a diplomat to become an ambassador to prestigious well-developed state or to become a representative in the United Nations the number of these people is closer to zero to at least 50% okay let's assume that you are this kind of person who is ready to sacrifice your life and pursue this career but one thing you will really regret sacrificing is your freedom because you will lose it and by losing freedom I mean that you will have no control over your appearance the ministry and everyone will tell you what you should look like especially it's relevant for women because we still live in a very extremely sexist society with the male dominance unfortunately and you will have to have a specific haircut you will have to wear very natural makeup no nails done and no piercing no tattoos nothing and that is the thing which has been very difficult for me because I cannot get used to that idea to the thought that I will have to give up on my personality to be an ordinary a worker for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and to maybe one day get a prestigious position somewhere on the top while I can still just give up on this idea and establish my business and have much more opportunities still have money and have freedom if you asked me whether I regretted becoming an international relations student or not I would definitely say that I have no regrets actually I really enjoyed this profession and sat in these subjects I really loved this but the number of problems around your job outweighs any kind of merits which this profession has and glamourizing the work of ambassadors and just their image is something which comes from mass culture and the representation of these people in films in any kind of TV shows and it's something which attracts people and I know friends who decided to become a diplomat just basing on their idea of diplomatic life which was presented in several TV shows and films it's not that glamorous it has lots of problems it has lots of stress and you need to realize it before entering the University before choosing this profession because you have to be ready and I really don't want you to be disappointed after a while and drop out and try to find any other new profession you would like instead of International Relations consider this video as a piece of advice from your elder sister who is finishing her bachelor's degree in international relations who has suffered a lot year in this four years but still who's very grateful to all the opportunities that this profession has given to her so I hope that this video was kind of useful for people who are applying right now and for those who are maybe finishing their first second third or even fourth year if you have the same struggles tallien as an international relations student please leave the comments down below I really need to feel this connection to you because I feel like I'm alone on this one I feel like I'm I'm the only one struggling while all my friends are faking that they are like very happy that they are finishing this kind of a profession they want to pursue this career it used to be like this for me but not anymore so please share your stories in the comments down below some of you have asked me about my Instagram whether I have it or not and I didn't have it until the last week and I will leave a link below I will be happy to see you there we can communicate and just share our struggles on this high note I would like to thank you for watching this videos for sticking up with me for so many minutes feel free to give this video a big thumbs up somewhere over there and you can subscribe to my channel somewhere over there if you're new here and basically you're new here I think because I have 100 subscribers but okay so yeah have a good day take care of yourself and I hope that I will see you very very by that was a difficult topic to discuss actually that's something triggering that is something close to a panic attack

Channel: RINACOSMIC

Views: 13,193

Rating: 4.9527745 out of 5

Keywords: studying, ir, diplomacy, politics, ir students, international relations studies, international relations, international relations student, international relations uni, international relations vlog, study with me, work with me, swm vlog

Id: O_esFhmnYiI

Length: 17min 30sec (1050 seconds)

Published: Wed May 13 2020