Life of an Intern

As hard as it was from abroad, I managed to secure myself am internship for the summer. I am a New Sector Alliance (branch of AmeriCorps) Fellow working with a local non-profit. My placement is the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling where I work with the communications director on social media, web 2.0, & marketing initiatives.

The first couple of weeks were somewhat slow. I had to learn about the organization & problem gambling. Also, my first week was the week of the Fourth of July (I wasted no time upon returning from abroad) so that was a quiet week, then half the office was at the National Conference the next week.

This week I started having real projects to work on and I'm enjoying it. Now that I'm settled in I've been able to initiate my own project (more about that in a later post). Within the office I have my specialized niche, and that feels really good.

What attracted me to this particular internship program is the fact that it pays me to do work in the social sector...as in, I managed to meet both of my internship objectives!! It certainly is going to have its challenges though.

First off, I started a month late and the program is structured such that I need to meet an hours requirement. This might mean I continue into the fall. Actually, it very likely means I continue into the fall (which I'm sure will please the people I work with very much).

Second, I've come to learn that this internship gives me a lot of responsibility. I have a supervisor, yes. But a lot of what I do doesn't need to be checked. That's something I haven't had at previous internships so I'm finding the lack of distinct structure (the freedom) difficult to get used to.

Some more of what I like, though...

The people: I have two sets of people through this program. Primarily I work in the MCCG office. It's a small staff (10 including myself) and they're all really close, welcoming, and appreciative of my help. It's definitely a bonus to like the people you work with at an internship (and to not get sent on coffee runs).

The other set of people is the New Sector set. I'm in a cohort with these really impressive individuals from Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, Bowdoin...and I somehow managed to impress them enough to be part of the cohort too! Besides being super smart, the other fellows are also pretty cool as individuals. I've enjoyed getting to know them so far; they each have such a different background, interests, and talents. All in all, an awesome group of new friends.

Bonus: speaking of friends, now that I'm back in Boston, I see my Babson friends so much. #ReunitedAndItFeelsSoGood. There is a good few who also intern right near me, and others in the Boston area for the summer.

I'm only 3 weeks in (yikes, I was in Korea a month ago! And by in Korea I mean I was in the airplane leaving Korea EXACTLY a month ago from when I wrote this sentence) but I'm enjoying the whole get up, dress all office-y, go to work in the city thing. I'm kinda taking advantage of the local eateries a little too much. I'm sure my wallet will need consoling later, but for now I'm just enjoying the summer.

And that's about it for now. I'll update soon about that project I mentioned, and the other adventures I'm up to these days...like how right now I'm on a bus to go visit Parvati in Connecticut for the weekend!

Bye!

To start with...

Greetings from Boston!

I have been blogging for a while now about my many adventures in foreign countries (from my perspective, I understand I have a bit of an international following. Shout out to my friends from Korea, Romania, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia, Hong Kong, and Japan!) (www.kmowles.blogspot.com). Over the past year I spent most of my time traveling and having adventures in new places. This year I plan to stay close to home much more.

I am starting the year with a summer internship in Boston. It was difficult to find something while abroad, but after just the first week, I think I'm going to enjoy this new job. The organization is the Massachusetts Council on Compulsive Gambling (http://www.masscompulsivegambling.org/). It is a non-profit organization (my favorite type) that advocates for more attention to problem gambling, as well as running education and assistance programs.

My role is Public Awareness (so that the fact that you just went to the website to find out what the council is because you've never heard of it doesn't happen in the future). More specifically, I will be working on enhancing the social media strategy and helping improve other technology related areas of the organization (so essentially, my job is to use social media).

I got involved here through AmeriCorps summer internship program called New Sector (http://www.newsector.org/). I am a summer fellow, along with a cohort of something like 30-40 other individuals who are also helping non-profits around Boston in various capacities. They have been great from the start. While I was still abroad the director of the program was great at keeping me in the loop as to what was going on with the program. I met her in person for the first time yesterday, and she is equally nice in person. Meanwhile, the other fellows all seem really great (granted I haven't really gotten to know them that well yet, but I'm working on it).

Also exciting about being back in Boston? Reconnecting with friends and family. I got home right in time for my birthday and the Fourth of July, so I got to see pretty much everyone over the past week. Most of us still have so much to catch up on though!

Well, that's just a preview of what I'll be up to this summer. I'll also update my travel blog with some residual posts that I didn't get around to.

:)