The Road to My Internship

In my case, finding an internship proved to be very hard. At some point, it seemed like I would have to drop the class because nothing was working out. I had applied for many things but I was not hearing back from anyone. It has made me question whether I was even qualified for the positions that I was applying for.
However, I had another way out. Thankfully, I was awarded with Federal Work-Study, as a part of which I could work for a government agency. Since nothing else had worked out, I resorted to that option. When I went to my Public Service Corps, a branch of FWS which deals with working for government agencies, my counselor provided me with a binder which contained all available jobs. I sat down and looked through it. Most of them were very clerical in nature, and that did not make me happy because I was looking for something more challenging; not just pushing papers.
After about fifteen minutes, I found something interesting. It was a researching job with the Human Resources Administration. I've always liked researching things, so I was excited to go and interview for that position. Another incentive that was attached to it was learning SPSS- statistical software that I wanted to learn. Therefore, this internship sounded like something I'd love. The interview for the internship went very well and the next day I was notified that I was accepted for the position.
The first days were extremely scary. Most of the time, I felt like I did not know enough for the position, but I was doing the best job I possibly could. From the first day on the job, I was told that I'd be working on a project of my own- the Databook which lists indicators of poverty for New York City and New York State, and compares them with the entire United States. It serves to inform the Human Resources Administration about the changes in poverty over the last 10 years, and how education and marital status affect it. The research I was to do would be available to HRA internally, and will hopefully influence future decision making and policy changes.
This is when I was to be trained by my supervisor to use SPSS. However, it took about a week for me to be given a work computer, along with my login information and email. Until that happened, I was sitting in the library, updating my knowledge or lack thereof, about welfare. Once I was given a computer to work on, and some basic SPSS training, I started the project.

But that's something for another post :)