Transitions

I completed my summer internship on Friday afternoon and flew back to Cambridge last night. Still not fully re-settled back in my apartment and beginning work tomorrow as an Orientation Advisor for the incoming MPP1s, I haven't had much time to fully reflect on the summer and its impact.

I feel honored to have had the opportunity to serve the White House Council for Community Solutions for the past eleven weeks, and I'm indebted to the Women and Public Policy Program and the Adrienne Hall Fellowship for their generous support, especially in cultivating a community of incredible women doing important work across the globe.

Working with the Council deepened my content knowledge about programs and networks of interventions that support youth who are disconnected or at risk of becoming disconnected from education and the workforce; about the imperative of service and civic engagement as strategies in catalyzing community development; and about the promise of cross-sector collaboration in rebuilding isolated and fragmented parts of communities. The Council also taught me a great deal about the politics of decision-making; about using strategies of negotiation and crisis management; and about the ebb and flow of progress in the unyielding global struggles to alleviate poverty, rebuild communities, and prepare the next generation of young people to be educated, productive, and engaged citizens of the world.


As the summer comes to a close, and as I reorient myself to my neighborhood (and reminisce that it was today one year ago that I moved to Massachusetts for the first time!), I'll say goodbye for now, for I'm sure that for the next nine months my life will be consumed by my coursework, my classmates, my second-year policy project, my work with the Student Public Service Collaborative, and other exciting adventures. Thanks for following my summer's work!