Looking Back/Overall Insight

This summer has gone so quickly and it is hard to believe that next week will be my last at the Center for Family Services. Overall, I have had a great experience this summer learning more about the non profit that does so much for South Jersey. My time at CFS definitely had its ups and downs and there were times that I felt a bit useless to be honest. However, reflecting back on the time as a whole, I realized how many valuable lessons I learned and the countless people I met and networked with within the large organization. In terms of skills that were useful for me to use- I realized how critical writing and synthesizing information is for non-profit. Part of my position, I helped the Head Start program with their qualitative monthly report. I had to read tons of information from the various sites and synthesize it into a concise summary. This is something I have thankfully done in many college courses and I was surprised how useful that skill became this summer. There weren't too many situations that surprised me but overall, I was surprised my the independence I was given in my internship. I was able to come up with my own ideas and how to implement them. For example, I started teaching a kid's yoga class for Camden residents. I learned that rather than constantly ask what I could be doing to help, I can propose unique ideas and make them a reality. When faced with the feeling of uselessness, I learned to be more proactive with the employees. My internship definitely was not the best that I imagined but overall, I had a great experience learning about the complexities that make a vast non profit function so successfully. I am also very happy with the connections and networks I was able to make through my time at the center and I know I have very solid contacts for the future.