Franz Mangonon at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
Franz Mangonon at the Eiffel Tower in Paris.

Puget Sound Scholar Interns in London, Explores Europe and Politics

Winter 2019 | Bay Area

Franz Mangonon, a junior at the University of Puget Sound, recently returned from a semester abroad in London. While there, she completed an internship at the International Centre for Parliamentary Studies, which creates courses on topics like economic diplomacy, gender equality, and a range of public policy issues.

“My role was to research potential guest speakers and analyze recent lecture topics to help create courses,” Franz says. The experience allowed her to develop event management skills by organizing lectures and ensuring speakers were fully accommodated.

“Posse prepared me to consider other people’s perspectives.”

Franz has now set her sights on building a career that will enable her to work with people from around the world.

“I got to meet delegates from other countries, and the women in particular were so inspiring,” she says. “Everything related to things we normally see in the news or on television, and I was right there in the moment with them.”

Franz also took three college courses, and still found time to travel around Europe; her trips included Rome, Barcelona, Amsterdam and Paris. In England, she visited Windsor Castle, Harry Potter Studios and Oxford.

She found herself humbled by the experience of engaging in difficult conversations with people she met.

“Posse prepared me to consider other people’s perspectives, especially today, around politics, but I don’t always get the opportunity to put it into practice,” she says. “I’m often around people like me. This was really jumping into the pool.”

As an international political economy major at Puget Sound, Franz is exploring other internship opportunities that will continue to broaden her worldview.