Week 1: Opportunity

Sean,

Well, you’re doing it. The world has been turned upside down and everything is crazy, but there’s also opportunity in this moment. You have the ability to help a community. You’ve been a member and a leader in communities before, where you knew who you were and what your role was. You’ve been surrounded by friends and coworkers that made you proud to be among them, where you felt accepted and appreciated. This is an opportunity to experience community in a different way. You won’t be able to meet everyone, look them in the eyes, and shake their hand, but you can still be of service. The work ahead of you could help people in more ways than you realize. You have the chance to make a difference, all that’s left is for you to take that chance.

You applied to this position because you wanted to experience a new place, a new people, a new community. You didn’t know what all was involved or what would be expected of you, but that wasn’t important. What was important was that you wanted to help and learn. You’re here because you want to do real, helpful work. And even if this internship isn’t how you imagined it, you can still accomplish a lot. You will have to work harder to make connections, you will have to manage the difficulties of virtual communication, and you will have to avoid the distractions of working from home. But you can still make connections within your new community, you can still learn, and you can still do good work.

As for contributions, you have some expectations to live up to, those of your boss and yourself. You need to work on your time management if you want to complete assignments in an orderly manner. You need to find ways to bring your creativity to the table when working with others, and you need to put yourself out there more. Hopefully by the end of this experience you will have achieved something worthwhile and more importantly learned something about others and yourself.