IDSB10 2013 Student Directory

Greetings, everyone!

i.

My name is Diana Lee, and I am Korean born, and raised in Canada. I am a second year student pursuing co-op specialist International Development Studies and a minor in Economics. 

     At this point, I cannot really envision myself for what I will likely be doing in 5 years, or 10 years. Initially, I wanted to work in United Nations as a diplomat or a consultant; "Travelling around the world with a proud UN blue visa, building harmony and peace between conflicting countries, coordinating and reporting development activities between developing countries governments and at UN headquarter" And this dream slowly fades away as I begin to understand the harsh reality of development works and that issues are much worse and serious than I imagined. Compassion, passion, critical thinking, specialized skills and personal motivation are what I hope to discover and build throughout the undergraduate years. First, I hope to develop strong growing sense of development as I gain more knowledge and critically think for the issues over time. Moreover, through the co-op experience, I want to find out what kind of work I would like to do, and what it is like to work as a humanitarian profession in the field. So far, some appealing aspects of development are following: Appropriate Technology (leads to sustainability and Independence), Food Security, Hunger, Corporate Social Responsibility, Microfinance (The Banker for Poor by Muhammed Yunus was such an inspiration!!!), Multinational corps/private sectors contribution to development.  

ii. Interest in the Course

I chose to take IDSB10 this year to get better understanding of how media communicates about development issues to public. Especially in our generation, who receieves much information, news from all forms of the media, it has been increasingly important for organizations to be able to use the media effectively in order to communicate with public. I want to know the manipulative and dark sides of communication hidden in the media of Global North when reporting development issues.

Also Reflecting on my experience in IDSA02, which was conducting an ICT project in Ghana; how ICT acts as a primary communication tool that delievers needed agricultural information to the poor, this spurred me to take the idsb10 class. Although the ICT was the main communication device that was used in this project, our project lacked the critical analysis of how the knowledge and communication come across to the public in Global South. I believe that by the end of the course, I will be able to understand how it is used in the field and the ways it could be used to maximize the impacts. Then I would like to go back to our ICT project and challenge the lacking points on communication in Global South.

iii.

Active learning is one of the cool components of this course. Unlike most of the other courses, this course forces me to participate actively in the class. This pressure will probably make me better prepare myself for every class. I hope to improve my communication skills and have a more confident learning attitude than before. 

In raising awareness about development issues of Global South, and conveying the right messages across, media plays an extremely vital role. I would like to get to know more about how the media's wordings, images touch our emotions, making us get involved in global community. At the same time, the public communication (PR) in media.

Media chooses what development issues to be published or make them well known to the public, and it would be fun to discuss the implications of the selection to us, and developing countries. 

I am proficient in softwares like powerpoint, microsoft office, pftizer, and more. I also am an active social media user, ranging from facebook, twitter, blogs. I am excited to learn how to communicate effectively about development issues to the public, friends, and the world.