Good morning everyone! We’re about halfway through my internship, and of course, it’s time for another blog! Just to recap, my name is Hannah Goldstein, I am a senior Political Science and Urban Studies major, and this summer I am interning virtually with the Red Cross’s workforce team.
This summer the big project I’m working on is a 15,000-person survey to send out to all individuals that have deployed on Disaster Relief Operations (DRO) within the past three years. There is also an additional category of individuals that responded to disasters prior to three years ago but have not responded since then. The survey looks at why individuals initially decided to respond, why they continue to respond, any suggestions for the future, and if they stopped, why they stopped. It will be in a larger survey for all Red Cross volunteers. Throughout my work on the survey and the internship so far, I have gained many skills as well as a higher understanding of professional development.
Something I have talked about briefly in my other blog posts but want to talk about in more depth here is networking. In the first two weeks, the other two girls interning with me, and I interviewed two individuals in some of the regional workforce teams, and then as a group interviewed three others to gain a more holistic perspective on what day-to-day operations in the resource deployment team did around the country. Later in the summer, around the halfway point we began our own networking calls. First, we went over with our supervisor the different departments in the Disaster Response side of the Red Cross National Headquarters (NHQ) team and selected several people whose jobs we wished to learn more about. I focused on learning about the Preparedness/community work side of things while the other two girls completing the internship with me focused on the medical and the statistical sides respectively. Taking notes and following up about any questions after the conversations was a great, particularly in the virtual environment.
Due to my internship being completely virtual, there were slightly different skills that were utilized throughout this experience, as opposed to if it had been in person. The first is that every piece of communication became that much more important. Writing clear and concise emails was instrumental when my coworkers lived and worked all over the country throughout different time zones and were constantly out of the office since people were continually deploying on disaster relief operations.
On the other hand, I have time to work on my technical skills such as SurveyMonkey and Excel. Although sometimes it is difficult to learn these types of software virtually since my boss is on a computer in Indiana and I am in Pittsburgh or Arlington, the NHQ team had been remote since way before Pandemic times, so they have all the tools and resources necessary to be successful without physically being next to one another. It was a change from my last job at the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Permits, Licenses, and Inspections where our sole goal was to ensure the proper scanning of all permits, since this job only had specific tasks that would come and go as needed.
Paul, my supervisor is an extremely flexible and understanding person. He gives us the work to do and expects it to be done. I appreciate that, but throughout the summer I wish I had asked for more strict deadlines since I am someone that gets distracted easily. Additionally, I realized that in my past leadership positions I have had a more controlling leadership style, however watching Paul and Emily, my other supervisor, I am realizing that people are more competent than I think and that sharing the workload usually works out well in the end. People will ask for help when they need it, even when it may take longer than I think.