The Nalanda Sriwijaya Centre-NalandaUniversity Internship Experience

October 25, 2016

The Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre (NSC) at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, launched the “NSC-NU Internship Programme” in 2016 to celebrate the long shared cultural past of Nalanda and Sriwijaya, the two globally renowned ancient learning centres and a fine example of inter-Asian connectivity over the past 2000 years. This programme is also a part of an ongoing collaboration between Nalanda University (NU)and NSC since the revival of NU. The programme provides an opportunity to two NU students every year to carry out an internship at NSC that last between six to eight weeks. This year Azad Hind Gulshan Nanda, a senior graduate student from School of Historical Studies, was selected as a pioneer intern under this programme and spent five weeks at NSC from June 20 to July 22. Recently, he made a presentation to share his internship experience with the Nalanda community. Here’s a brief account of the internship experience by Azad Hind Gulshan Nanda

I feel honoured to have been selected as pioneering intern under this program. During my five weeks stay as an intern at NSC, I successfully carried out several projects that include book indexing, elaborating a research proposal for my MA thesis, assistance to archaeology unit, and report writing. My internship supervisors were Dr. Andrea Acri (Visiting Fellow at NSC and Visiting Associate Prof. at NU) and Dr. Helene Njoto (Visiting Fellow at NSC), who also guided me in several field visits that further improved my understanding of Southeast Asian cultures and societies. Also, working with leading researchers, accessing rich library resources, participating in seminars and conferences, and interacting with various research scholars widened my knowledge in the field and gave me a first-hand experience of current scholarly trends. The internship also helped me to know more about the cosmopolitan culture of modern Singapore and early Sriwijaya, both symbolically representing the long history of interconnected Asia.