At the beginning of the summer I wrote down several learning goals for my summer internship with Covenant House. Some goals I have met, while are others I am still working on.
One of my goals was to become more comfortable making phone calls and talking to people I haven’t met before. I still get nervous before meeting or talking with new people but I would say that overall my comfort and confidence have increased.
Every week the interns get to have lunch with a member of the executive board of Covenant House. These lunches are provided as an opportunity to ask questions and learn. In the beginning I felt timid, but I started asking questions at our past few lunches. I think this may be from spending more time at Covenant House and getting to know the other staff and interns better. The pictures below are some of the people we have had lunch with – Kevin Ryan (president of covenant house); Peggy Healy (Senior Vice President/Latin America); Creighton Drury (Executive Director of the NY Shelter). Speaking with these guys was pretty intimidating, but it’s a great opportunity to ask them questions about Covenant House, their experiences and their careers. Being less timid is something I need to continue working on not only in the work world but in my personal life as well.
Another goal I had was to learn about the corporate side of a non-profit organization. Although I have a lot more to learn, my experience so far has been insightful. I learned about their database system, the telemarketing department, their human trafficking campaign, and a 1-year service program they have called Faith Community. It honestly shocked me just how many different jobs exist in this organization.
There are two learning objectives which I would need to keep working on. The first thing is learning about the type of relationship Covenant House HQ has with its shelters across the US, Latina America, and Canada. The other thing I would like to learn more about is the population Covenant House works with. I’ve learned about GRE programs, employment programs, the choice youth make to come to a shelter like Covenant House and the choice some youth make to leave. Despite everything I have experienced and all the people I have talked to I still feel there is more for me to learn.
Here are a few pictures of the different Covenant House Shelters! From top to bottom: CH Alaska; CH Florida; CH Toronto; CH New Orleans; CH New York
So you want to know how I track progress I’ve made this summer? Well I can show you.
The picture above is a typical time-sheet that I fill out daily. Here I record the different projects I am working on. The time-sheet is at the request of my supervisor, and I am very happy we had to fill it out every week. I can look back to this time sheet and see the different projects I have completed. I also find myself eager to talk about my projects and other topics with my friends. I worked with Covenant House’s database team the first week of June. I still talk about projects I worked on for them, the purpose of the software they use, and why it is relevant to their shelters. I have done that with most of the projects I worked on – I enjoy talking about them to anyone who will listen.
Right now I feel most proud of the work I completed with the database team. Working at Covenant House headquarters in an office building sometimes makes it hard to see the direct results of your work. I know that every person’s role in the office is critical to the organization and that headquarters are critical in the success of the shelters. However, when working behind a computer all day one doesn’t always see the effects of their actions.
I recently went on a tour of the New York Covenant House site. During this tour we talked with a man working in the drop-in center. The man had his computer on and his computer screen was open to the database software system. When I was working with ETO I helped create a report specifically for the New York site to use. Each site has at least 100 reports and it was highly unlikely that the report open was the one I created. However, it made me happy to be able to see the software being used. Additionally, being able to collect data is important not only for Covenant House to reflect on their practices but also for producing information to the government and donors when Covenant House is requesting money and applying for grants. It’s also neat seeing how transferring their shelters over to the ETO system will impact the entire organization as a whole. You can click here if you want to learn more the impact it will have.
I feel as if every skill I learned so far will come in handy at one point in my career. Through this internship I have the opportunity to work with a variety of supervisors and collaborate with other interns. A skill of any work place is adjusting to different work styles. By working with different departments I have seen a great variety. I have also been practicing my communication skills. Communication is important for reaching common goals, avoiding conflict, and creating a strong community. Communication is relevant not only in academics and the work force, but in my personal life as well.
I have also been able to work my writing. This varies from sending emails to creating reports to writing for this blog. I have gained experience researching topics, compiling information, and presenting reports. I have also used excel on several occasions. While I have used excel for class before, creating spreadsheets for reports feels different than handing in home work. There was little direction and it was up to me to compile information and lay it out in a presentable way. I had to use my own judgment which also meant gaining confidence in the work I was doing. I’m learning that confidence is an important quality to hold on to when starting in a new work place.
I’ll write again in a few weeks (2 and a half to be exact) once I have completed my internship with Covenant House! I can’t believe I only have two and a half weeks left – that’s not a lot of time!