The summer internship—part of the quintessential college experience and one of the most highly suggested ways for students to explore career opportunities and to get hands-on training in fields they might be interested in.
Although my summer internship at My Sisters’ Place involved me in a common college affair and allowed me to explore career opportunities and to obtain real world experience, the internship ultimately allowed me to do so much more. It allowed me to be involved in work that I believed in, and to feel like I was diving deeply into the complexity of issues that, even in my personal interest, I had only understood on a surface level.
The application process for the summer internship began in December of 2018, and by March of 2019, I had been contacted for an interview. As a college student who has not yet figured out how to skillfully navigate the artificiality and the salesmanship that characterize the interview setting, I find that interviews can be incredibly anxiety-inducing. They can sometimes feel like tests designed to trick, or like a house of mirrors where every “professional” version of you looks back at the real you through the lens of an interviewer so that the image is forever distorted. It is not an easy thing to do—having to prove one’s value and one’s ability to do a job despite not yet having earned the skills to do so—and it can cause people, especially students, to teeter dangerously dangerous edges of uncertainty and imposter syndrome.
When I interviewed with My Sisters’ Place, it was clear to me that my interview was not a test, but a conversation; the topic of which revolved around my skills, experiences, and desire for the work that I had indeed applied to do. It was a conversation about how I might be able to bring all three together in ways that would be relevant and useful to both the MSP work environment and to me. During the interview, I had been asked something along the lines of “What would you like to do during your time at MSP,” and it was a reminder that, even in the infancy of this amorphous thing called my “career,” I did (and do!) still have the agency to chart the course of my work and to integrate my existent skills into my work in ways that would set me up both for new experiences and for the acquisition of new skills. It was with that attitude that I would later approach the internship.
When I discovered that I had been accepted into the summer internship program at My Sisters’ Place and would be part of the development department, I was beyond excited. I would be combining my interests in human trafficking, domestic violence, and research into work that I truly believed in and wanted to feel closer to. I always believed in the importance of the work that MSP does, and I was unable to rid myself of the idea that I would not be able to honor that importance. Still, I felt hopeful that I would learn how to contribute meaningfully to the organization, and I was never made to feel otherwise. Not even once.
I started the internship in June of 2019. During my internship at My Sisters’ Place, I was primarily involved in two major projects. The first project involved me creating a resource guide that compiled local service organizations that staff members of MSP could then refer transitioning clients to, and the second project involved me assisting in the organization of a backpack drive.
Creating the resource guide allowed me to do research in a way that I had never done before. I was tasked with finding no or low-cost emergency shelters, mental health services, legal services, and other services that might be useful to clients of MSP in their transition. In doing this project, I learned how to identify relevant details about various services from websites, fliers, and other materials teeming with information. I learned how to follow the organizational choo-choo train that would lead me to the stations of ever more services without being overwhelmed or without getting lost. I learned how to think broadly and critically about the kinds of services that should be on a document such as this and why. I learned how to organize thirty or so pages of dissonant information into one coherent document. The resource guide is a living document that will be updated and revised; a document to which sources will be added and deleted as relevant sources continue to come and go. For me, this project familiarized me with the practicality of knowing that how to help people means knowing where people can get help. It stood at the place where strategic planning meets service, and it gave me an interesting insight into what MSP staff deal with every day, albeit in a slightly different way.
The other project I was involved in was a pre-school through college backpack drive. I would receive emails from MSP staff members about clients who would be receiving backpacks filled with school supplies for the start of the new school year. I learned how to stay organized in the face of constantly incoming information, how to organize that information accurately and in a reasonable order, and how to contact staff for more information when necessary. I assisted in counting supplies and in ensuring that backpacks were stocked with the appropriate amounts of each material. I learned that teamwork and communication are the engines that drive MSP, and that being precise behind the scenes is integral to managing what can happen when the cameras are rolling so to speak.
What resonated with me most from the internship were the efforts by Team MSP to involve me in the totality of the office experience. I had been invited to participate in greater numbers of opportunities than I was able to partake in! I was involved in departmental meetings, trainings, and even a sort of department book club. I wasn’t just “the intern,” I was part of a team, and my opinion and input mattered! Conversations with staff about their own career journeys inspired me and confirmed something that I had long believed; that is that genuinely learning from those around me was far more important than any superficial attempt at “resume-building.”
During the course of my internship, I truly felt like I was part of Team MSP, and although my time there only lasted a summer, the lessons that I learned and the immeasurable kindness and compassion that I received will last a lifetime.