Week 6:
Final Week

August 22, 2016

This week has been the final week of my fellowship with Project Rousseau. The week started off a bit hectic and stressful, but ended on a positive note, and I am proud of all the work I have accomplished.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, last week ended with me needing to find a new community service opportunity for the students at Hyde Park Academy after the one I originally selected was deemed a bit too far away. I found an assisted living facility 10 minutes from HPA that I contacted to see if the students could volunteer there once a week. Monday I was able to chat with my contact at the assisted living facility over the phone. During the call, we discussed how often the students would go to Montgomery Place, what they would be doing, and when they would start. We decided that they would begin in late September and that my contact would pair each student up with a client of hers. The students would spend time with the clients, talk to them, and be someone that her clients could trust and form a bond with. I am very hopeful that this will work out for the best.

Although there were some aspects of coordination that I wasn’t able to finish from my side, I worked with my supervisor at Project Rousseau to transition the loose ends and pass the project on in a way that could be continued by future Project Rousseau volunteers.

Once all that was squared away, I created a document encompassing all that I accomplished during my time at Project Rousseau and sent to my supervisors to provide them with one place to go for all the Chicago related documents.

I am so grateful that I had this opportunity to work with such an amazing organization. I am very hopeful that Project Rousseau will continue to grow and do great things for students across the country.

I acquired many new skills through this internship. I gained organizational skills, persistence, patience and the ability to plan.  This experience pushed me outside of my comfort zone. I gained independence by having to travel to a completely new city and state, and then navigate that new city alone.  I gained some independence at home in Chicago, as I had to travel alone to all my site visits, and learn how to use the public transportation system, which I had never done before.

I also acquired the ability to plan things, and honed my organizational skills through the calendar creation process, going on site visits and finding a community service opportunity.  The fellowship also taught me about patience.  I am a very anxious person by nature, so when it takes people longer than a day to respond to an email or phone call, I usually get flustered.  When certain opportunities or individuals did not reply quickly to emails, I learned to understand that they were busy, and would respond when they had a chance.

Within the context of being patient, I learned that planning something, whether a site visit or a mentor recruitment process, takes a lot of time.  This was a good thing for me to learn, as I usually want things done immediately and am not used to taking time to let things play out.  I found also that if your first plan does not work out, it is OK, and life will go on.

I learned a lot about nonprofit organizations. I learned first hand how complex it is to run a nonprofit, as well as how communication can be affected when an organization is mainly volunteer-based and key individuals have other full-time jobs. I also discovered how many different people one needs to be in contact with in order to finalize a plan. I needed to be in touch with Beth, Andrew, Claudia and Gracie, the Chicago volunteers, staff at the sites I was visiting or at the community service opportunities I was investigating, as well as the other interns.

My understanding about the skills needed to succeed in the professional world has greatly increased thanks to this fellowship. I now understand that you will not always know exactly what job you are applying for, or what will be required at that job, and that this is acceptable.  It will not always be the case that all the information you need will be immediately handed to you.  It takes initiative, drive and determination to seek out the people you need to talk to and get the information you need to succeed in your job, and ultimately, in life.

This experience with Project Rousseau has really shown me that I do have an interest in helping people. At the beginning of the internship, I was a bit disappointed when I found out that I would not actually be working directly with the students. However, it the work that I did complete reinforced how much I do like interacting with and helping people face to face, day to day. I hope to continue to learn more about nonprofit organizations, and could really see myself working in the non-profit world in the future.