Despite the fact that these meetings are after you’ve completed a long work day, Tuesday and Thursday meet up’s have become one of my highlights from all of this summer’s fun. I have really enjoyed attending these events every week because it has enabled me to learn more about the many different nonprofit organizations in the Detroit Area, in addition to connecting and catching up with my peers on a weekly basis. These meetings did not strictly serve as an informational resource/networking opportunity for me, but a chance to reflect on my personal experiences in the city, and a chance to build off the experiences of my peers to form my own ideas about the city’s conditions and where I think things are going. I believe having the opportunity to reflect is essential for a program of this magnitude, since it consists of a lot of moving parts that someone could absolutely love or not enjoy as much. With this, I believe it is super easy to freeze a not so fun moment in time, which could result in you possibly not liking a particular aspect of the program due to an unforeseen/uncontrollable event. However, I believe reflection is key when things may be going really well, or not great at all because it gives you a chance to take a step back, gather your thoughts, and hopefully configure them in a manner that will only prepare you to handle certain situations better.
