WEBVTT

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Welcome again, everyone,
and good evening.

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This summer, I had
the opportunity intern

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at the permanent
mission of Pakistan

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to the United
Nations in New York.

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My name is Habiba Shah.

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I'm from the class of 2019.

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My major is
international relations.

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And this summer, again,
I was a junior advisor

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at my internship.

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So my internship search
actually started at the start

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of my sophomore year.

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And I knew that I wanted to
work in a big organization.

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I didn't know exactly what.

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I went to the CDC.

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I used a lot of their resources,
interviews, resume, CV,

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everything.

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CDC helped me out with that.

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I spoke to my professors about
development and diplomacy

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and and Kirk is
here, I spoke to him

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about international internships.

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And I knew that I wanted
to work in New York.

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I love New York.

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It's my favorite
city in the world.

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And so the organization,
the Pakistan mission the UN

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is a government organization.

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And our ambassador
is Dr. Maleeha Lodhi.

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And it works with the
international community

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in accordance with
the UN charter

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to promote and maintain
international peace

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and security.

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It's also a member of
the Security Council.

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Ever since 1947, since
Pakistan's independence,

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it has been a member
of the United Nations.

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So my role as Junior Advisor,
I had to attend meetings daily,

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9:00 to 5:00.

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Sometimes I had to
work eight hours

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to 10:00, 11:00 at the Security
Council and General Assembly.

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And I was representing Pakistan.

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I attended high level events
including the Oceans Conference

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that was in June.

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I had to draft reports
and meetings every day.

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I visited a lot of
international embassies,

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ranging from the United States,
Canada, Morocco, Bangladesh.

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And I hosted events
for Pakistan,

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including our
[INAUDIBLE] celebration

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and the independence day musical
which is on the 14th of August.

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And the UN Bazaar,
we have a whole shop

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and we had to sell
products from Pakistan.

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And moreover, I
participated in a lot

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of discussions and
debates on a host

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of issues ranging from
human rights, antiterrorism,

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development, climate change,
and international law.

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So the main challenges that I
faced during my summer was A,

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I was in a male-dominated
environment.

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Not just within the
Pakistan mission.

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We only had two
women working there.

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One was our ambassador, and
one was one of my supervisors.

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But the rest of them, I
think there were 15 officers,

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and all of them were males.

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Adjusting to a new city
was very, very challenging

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for me because of the
different culture values,

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again within our office, outside
our office where I was living.

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I was staying in
the Bronx and I had

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to commute to
Manhattan every day

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and it was a two-hour
long commute.

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Working in a team, again,
was also very challenging.

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There were a lot of people
who didn't want to cooperate

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and it was just very challenging
dealing with people like that.

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What I learned, again
despite obvious challenges,

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[INAUDIBLE] from
reports and this

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is just an example
of one of the reports

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that I wrote on the
humanitarian situation

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in the Congo and the CFR.

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I learned about
building and maintaining

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professional relationships.

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My supervisor [INAUDIBLE]
again, she was a woman.

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And she gave me a lot
of respect as an intern.

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When she introduced me
to people at the UN,

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she would never introduce me as,
oh, this is my intern Habiba.

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She'd always say,
this is my colleague.

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And it was very different,
again that parallel,

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because my other
supervisor, he was a male,

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and he would never--

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again, this is my intern.

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First off, he would never
introduce the girls to anyone.

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And then we had to
actually apply for--

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he would give preference
to the males a lot.

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And as women, again, we
had to fight for that.

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I learned about budgeting
living in New York.

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It was so expensive and
on a tight, lean budget.

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That was very
challenging for me.

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The negotiation process, I
learned so much about it.

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And like, if my international
relations courses,

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history books, you
think it's just

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a treaty and the next
thing they sign it.

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But there's a lot of hard
work that goes into it.

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197 countries coming
together and everyone

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is protecting their interests.

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So I learned a lot about that.

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Pakistan's role at
the UN, again, it

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was a very challenging time for
Pakistan at the UN at the time

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because that's when our
prime minister, he faced

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a lot of corruption charges.

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And we were at the highlight
of the Kashmir issue

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and the Afghanistan issue.

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The people I met, at the UN,
again every day was amazing.

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Casually, I got to meet
very different people.

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I met Nikki Haley who is
the US ambassador to the UN.

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I was sitting at a coffee shop.

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This man comes and asks
me, oh, can I sit with you?

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There are no other
seats available.

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And we just got to talking.

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He was from Saudi Arabia.

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And then another man
comes in a business suit

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and says, oh, Mr.
Ambassador, we need you.

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[INAUDIBLE]

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[LAUGHTER]

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He said, oh, I'm the
Saudi ambassador.

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And again, we got to talk,
we got to exchange numbers.

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And I met Mahmoud Abbas,
president of Palestine.

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I met the president of
[INAUDIBLE],, Peter Johnson.

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I met several
Pakistani politicians.

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And the UN DP administrator
who is in that picture with me,

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I just asked him, a
random person, hey,

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can you take a picture?

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And we got to talking, and
he was a UN DP administrator.

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Again, I exchanged
numbers with him

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and it was a great
opportunity to network.

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Not just with important
people, I made a lot of friends

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from all over the
world and built

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a lot of lasting
relationships that I

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know that we're going to
keep in touch in the future.

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[INAUDIBLE] everyone
takes at the UN.

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Overall experience, it
was very, very enriching.

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Despite all the challenges
I face, I grew personally,

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academically, professionally.

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And this is an
experience that's going

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to stay with me for
the rest of my life.

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Thank you very much.

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