holidays

My internship with PA,CO finally ended yesterday. Having started this internship on May 7th, 3 days after my last exam paper, I started my holidays with a bout of flu. Still reeling from the sneezes and the runny nose, I caught up with much needed sleep and rest for my body today. There's still two weeks of holidays left before I am engulfed by the massive load of readings required by the honours year. I can finally do some guilt-free slacking amidst modules-bidding, reading of that genre of intellectually stimulating and emotionally stifling books which is the standard fare of a political science/history major and catching up with friends. That desire for academic excellence is still burning strongly while the strategic caculus has ceased to exist. Enough said about what lies ahead, now I shall do some reflections upon my internship stint....

I had one of my best mentors in life in this internship. He tried his best to share his experiences with me, not just in PA, but in life. His instructions, his words of advice, his debrief after every meeting, every event will be something that I will never forget in life. Experience is such a priceless quality.

Like my previous internship with nexus, this has again been a humbling experience. Probably even more so than my stint with nexus. I was exposed to stuff that my training as a political scientist failed to equipped me with. Much more importantly, I feel is the people skills that I have picked up in this internship. No, I was never intellectually overwhelmed in this internship(unlike my last one which tested my creativity/analytical/research skills to the fullest), but this time round, this internship brushed up my soft skills in life. Not that PS majors are socially inept, we must be the most vocal and impressive amongst fass students in terms of how to present yourself, communicate and sell your ideas, but school can only provide that much.

One unexpected outcome of this internship is the friendships cultivated during this period. No, I don't mean networking, I meant friendship. Knowing people that are of the same wavelength, fun people whom I can click on both the intellectual level and on the social level. Fun people whom I feel very comfortable with. I know that these are people that friendships can be built upon, that I will like more and more and that I will treasure.

Of course, there are also downsides of this internship, the absence of a challenge that can overwhelm my intellectual ability, the lack of empowerment, the mundane tasks such as data entry and filing and the free-er periods of this internship proved to be dampeners.

All in all, this experience has been invaluable and has added on to my personal growth. Another step forward, another experience to make myself more marketable. Maybe what I have is still not enough to fulfill my dream, but this is definitely a step in the right direction.

I need to keep taking steps in the right direction, not allowing myself to rest on my own's laurels and keep believing that dreams are not impossible. Only with continued personal growth and a sustantial marketability of myself to my potential employers can I pursue my goal of working for the public good in an area that appeals to me most.