E-Term 2021: Internships in Community and Social Change

Something I’m learning about myself is just how unmotivated I can be when working remotely. I somewhat learned this in March when we had to leave school at the beginning of the pandemic, but I was reminded of it when being assigned my project. Luckily, I have been able to overcome it for the most part by waking up earlier and just getting started without thinking. Despite a momentary lack of motivation I really am enjoying the work I’m doing. The organizations are very eager to talk to me about the work they do and are excited that I want to learn about them. I think as this month is coming to a close and I only have a few days left in the internship, the way I can make the most of it is by really spending time on making the spreadsheet look its best for my supervisor. I also want to reach out to the justice committee at the church one last time and send them a thank you note of sorts to thank them for their support as well. I want to leave a good final impression for the church in case I need to call back on this for future job opportunities. 

Through this process, I have surprised myself and found out that I am actually good at personal communications. That is, I am able to confidently have telephone conversations, leave clear voice messages with my future availability, respond to emails immediately, call back if I missed any phone calls, follow up phone calls with thank you emails. Prior to this internship (also in the early days of this internship), my nerves would get the best of me, and I'd hang up immediately somebody picks up. However, I still need to improve my interactive communication because I am still so intimidated by meeting/talking to people in person or sharing my ideas.

I think my strength, which is also my weakness, is being too independent. I think this is my strength because I can work well under minimal supervision but at the same time my weakness because I hate to admit that I need help when I'm stuck with something. I refuse to let anyone help me because I think I can do it on my own and that's definitely not a good thing.

I can make the most of this internship by building networks. Some strategies would be being genuinely interested in others by asking questions and engaging them in conversations. Another strategy would also be to frequently appreciate others for the job they are doing in making a positive impact in society.

This week in my internship I am tasked with helping of the decades that one of the fellows did not complete. After initially researching a decade in the fall the learning curve has been a lot faster this time. In the fall I struggle on how to even start research for my decade. Using primary sources was tricky and also finding secondary sources was weird. I feel a lot more comfortable in doing background research to find a topic and then delving into finding further research. I am also tasked with reading all the other reports and finding two separate themes from 1870-present that the fellows can use in our zoom fire-side chat. I find these jobs intriguing as I am interested in the work I am doing and I don’t mind doing research on my own time. When working I enjoy being able to focus when I need to focus and relaxing when I need to relax, this fits well with my personality

    I am going to spend the rest of the time I have during this internship making the most of what I've been doing. I will be creating more graphics and putting together a spreadsheet for my supervisor that has important deadlines for their organization to receive grants from other organizations. I have enjoyed this opportunity to be able to learn more about what this organization does for school districts that cannot afford arts education. I want to end my internship in a positive way and know that I learned as much as I could from these few weeks. 

Throughout my internship, I have surprised myself with my ability to successfully navigate the online database and resources. I was a bit worried going into this internship that my tech skills were not advanced enough, but I proved myself wrong and now have more confidence in my abilities to work virtually. With the time I have left in this internship, I'm going to try to take advantage of all interactions I have with other people, whether it be my supervisor, my clients, or other CCDN interns. I think appreciating every chance we get to spend with other people will really help us as we waver the rest of this pandemic. I'm also going to try and be mindful of positives that come with working virtually, such as the ability to sleep in and spend more time with my roommates.

Throughout this internship I am learning that working remotely has its challenges. It sometimes takes longer to get a response or even that you feel like you aren’t doing enough work. I think that from this I have learned that I would prefer to work in an office with this type of work. I think that in person work would allow for a closer connection with clients and would allow for work to be done faster. Even though I am shy, I would prefer working in person because it would give me the option to get comfortable in a new environment. I often like to push myself out of my comfort zone because it allows for growth. 

During the internship I have struggled with the structure of it all. I am a person that likes deadlines and structure when it comes to work; and this internship has given me a lot of freedom. This freedom is a good thing because I can do things on my own time, but I would prefer more structure to it. I am doing well though because I give myself the structure I need by creating deadlines for myself. Even though I struggled with the structure I think I have done a good job adapting to it because I know that not all jobs are going to give me the structure that I need. So I found a way to kind of create it for myself. I am surprised that I have been able to create this for myself and sort of stay on track with all the work I have been doing. I think me being super organized has paid off because I created this system that works for me. 

 I am trying to make the best of this internship by reaching out to other interns working in the same organization and keeping in touch with my supervisor. By keeping touch I try to ask for more work or even ask questions in order to keep myself actively doing work. I even hope to work more with CCDN after this internship is over.

Something I am learning about myself through this internship is how much I like concrete steps and to see the big picture before starting something. I think this is because I enjoy structure and am end-goal oriented, especially in large complex problems. I am good at organizational skills but am not good at pacing myself or preventing burn-out. I have surprised myself in how much I enjoy the one-on-one interaction with my supervisor as we have many things to talk about once we start. I have also learned that an in person environment is important but not necessary for me to form relationships with colleagues. I have discovered that the best use of my time will be creating a working document that has all of my ideas for the future development with as much explanation as I can put, so that in the future these ideas may be built upon and acted on.

I think when clients tell me the situations they are facing, I believe I'm getting better at not letting my emotions take over me. It can be extremely hard because we are aware of people needing assistance, but listening to the clients problems is different. You are the person they are calling because they need help. I never thought I would be doing something like this, but i do enjoy it. I use their situations as fuel to work fast so we are able to assist them with whatever they need. 

I know I have written about this before but I can not deny that my biggest lesson in this internship has been gratitude and humbleness. I will forever remember this experience because it is way too real. We read a billion books, watch countless movies, and here hours of lectures but this experience trumps all of that. People are out here struggling. Quite literally, the tuition of one student at Birmingham  Southern could feed thousands of people.

I am honestly enjoying being able to talk to people. Sometimes when I am on the phone with older women the conversation turns into something more than the actual task than I am completing. I value those moments the most. I think that is because I am sociable. I usually never meet strangers and I can work according to any specific situation I am in. I have found myself to be really good at communicating. I am never nervous when speaking to people and I a quick problem solver. There have been times where I did not know the answer to things but I immediately provided them with a solution. I could improve in my timeliness. Sometimes I schedule to do things in a certain time frame and mis-schedule. I have learned that I would prefer being in a office space doing this type of work. It would be easier to get questions answered.

I have made the most of this internship by extending my time that I will be working with CCDN. After this month is over I will continue to put my time into helping this community. Other strategies would be to improve my time management skills so that I am able to help more individuals.

For many years, including this year, I have set one of my New Year’s goals to be to read more. Through my internship, I have been more successful in working towards this goal than ever before. While I was initially nervous about picking out my own research materials, looking for this content has been one of my favorite parts about this internship. Whether it is a book, podcast, or a study, I have enjoyed getting to read and listen to so many different perspectives on leadership from people of all backgrounds. 

As someone who thinks they thrive under structure, I knew this internship was going to push me out of my comfort zone. Outside of a few class projects, I cannot think of many times where I have had such free reign to decide what questions I want to focus in on and the strategies to help approach potential answers. This internship revealed to me that I enjoy this freedom to explore more than I thought I would. Furthermore, I am growing to find more comfort in the unknown. Along with this, I am learning not to equate success with solutions, as sometimes the best outcome is the absorption of new information and experiences. 

Going forward, I want to end this internship as positively as possible. I want to adjust my mindset to keep the questions I am asking about power and leadership as an ongoing exploration. Unfortunately, I often brain dump a lot of the information I learn at the end of the semester, and I want to avoid this habit with my internship at Beloved. I firmly believe that the questions I am asking are relevant to everyone no matter what area they do or do not work in. One strategy to prevent this is to, at the end of my internship, write one deep question I have left with in the notes section of my planner for each month for the rest of 2021. This way, I will always see a  question when I go to check my schedule, and it will remind me to continue thinking.

As most of you know, I am interning at Highlands UMC with their inclusionary ministries program. I already knew that I was passionate about this topic, so I haven’t learned a lot about myself in that regard; however, I have learned about my work style and ethic through this internship, which I am very grateful for.

Typically, I thrive more in an in person setting, so when I learned that this internship was going to only be online, I was a little hesitant as to how I was going to handle the workload and responsibility. It has been hard to learn this new way of working, but I think I have done a good job at managing my workload and assignments from my advisor.

I’ve always known that I enjoy compiling information on topics I am interested in, but this internship has shown me how much I really love it. This internship has shown me how much I love researching topics I am truly passionate about. A good bit of my work next semester will involve me doing research on things that I am interested in, and I was a little nervous about how I would fair doing research like that, because I thrive on connecting with others, but this internship has taught me that I can do research on topics I care about, and it does not feel like a chore. I am no longer dreading the research that I have to do next semester, instead, I am looking forward to it!

One thing that I have learned about myself during this internship, is that I have to have a list of everything that I need to get done or tasks. As someone who has adhd I can often find myself getting lost or overwhelmed with completing different tasks. By making a list, I am able to pinpoint my priorities more easily. Another thing that I have continued to learn about myself is how detail oriented I am. The only downside to this is that I either stress out way too much about something or I continue to change my idea. 

An example would be that my internship asked me to help them redo their brochure. I made sure to send them three formats so that they were able to choose which one they liked best. I really have found myself being really good at communicating and asking for more work. My supervisor has been very helpful in terms of letting me take over the pages as well. I could really improve on finding more ways to get more people connected to the social media sites that I am taking over.  I think I could really work on making myself work more independently and not having to ask as many questions as I have. Lastly, I can make the most of my internship with getting more familiar with the clients which I will be doing these next two weeks. I also will be able to make the most of this internship by putting my best effort into the organization.