benjamin irvine

After taking International Law and Regulations in spring of 2018, the professor asked me to be the teaching assistant for the spring 2019 course. The role involved researching and designing the class simulation, which ran for one month of the quarter. In the winter I researched and chose the topic (cyber security), designed the rules of the simulation, chose the countries and roles which would be represented, and wrote memos for each character as a primer for students. In the spring, I presented to students about the topic, organized weekly meetings, and ran the in-class sessions for the 51 students who participated.

During my working holiday visa I spent five months in a town of 500 people in the Australian Outback, starting as a service attendant at the BP station. I was promoted to work as the sole employee on hand at the adjacent motel, and in charge of booking reservations, running the front desk, serving customers at the restaurant, and making drinks at the bar. During the motel shifts I was the only employee on shift outside of the kitchen. The owners offered me a job at any of their other locations, but I had to return to the US before my visa expired.

After three months with YBM I was chosen as the homeroom teacher for two kindergarten age classes, both of which started the program in their first year with no prior English experience. As homeroom teacher I was in charge of planning lessons, grading assignments, filling out progress reports, and giving presentations to the student body. In the afternoons I also taught elementary age students in YBM's after school program.

I worked with Chinese high school students who planned to attend university abroad, primarily in the US. My duties included advising students on school selection, application essays, resumes, and majors. In addition to counseling I taught a writing class to the grade 12 students at the Affiliated High School to Hangzhou Normal University in Hangzhou. After my first year at the school I helped the in-house counseling services to doubled student, which also doubled revenue for our department.

I am the sole foreign employee in the International Department of IBJ Leasing Company, Ltd's head office in Tokyo, Japan. IBJ Leasing is a major financial leasing company which has traditionally focused on leasing for equipment and other industrial assets. Today the company has dozens of branches across Japan and is affiliated with four international leasing companies in the Asia Pacific region. My duties include proofing documents which are sent to the international affiliates and foreign shareholders, market research to aid in our expansion plans (both across industries and foreign markets), and cross-department projects which are international in scope.