Who: Sylvia Mundt, 26 years old, currently lives in Frankfurt, Germany
Hailing from Germany, Sylvia was the Atlantic Summer Institute’s first International Intern. She came to PEI in 2008 and worked in Marketing for the 2008 Summer Institute. “It was my first time traveling out of Europe!”
Her experience on PEI working for the ASI was very positive, and she continues to draw upon the Island mentality and the marketing and organizational skills she learned during her internship in her current job as a controller for Internationaler Bund, a social work and education organization in Frankfurt, Germany.
Working for the Atlantic Summer Institute “was quite different than working in Germany. First of all, it’s a much smaller company, so this was my first experience of just a few people working on one project. The mentality of the people here is very different – people are more relaxed and laid back – so that’s one thing I’ve really tried to adopt in Germany. Just trying to be more laid back and knowing that a project is not the be all and end all, that there are other things that are important, like relationships between people.”
Following her internship, Sylvia moved back to Germany to finish her Bachelor of Arts. She has been working with Internationaler Bund for the past two and a half years. She recently returned to PEI for a vacation and has enjoyed revisiting her favourite places on the Island and reconnecting with her former colleagues.
When asked about memories that stand out from her time as an intern, Sylvia recalls the night of the ASI Multicultural Dinner, when she taught German folk dancing to all the dinner attendees alongside the kids in the ASI Children’s Program. “Everyone was really enthusiastic about learning the dance! It was my first time teaching German folk dancing. I had my traditional clothes with me and I spoke about the clothes and the dance, and everyone was really interested. The kids did the demonstration of the dance and then everyone got up from the tables and did the dance too! That was a very memorable moment for me.”
Sylvia Mundt, Patsy Beattie-Huggan & Sara MacDougall at the 2008 ASI Multicultural Dinner at Confederation Centre of the Arts