The final deliverable that we Urban Studies people were responsible for was the asset map, the previous focus of this project, which we started to complete and widen scope from this year. What that meant is that instead of a larger effort to gather data, a more limited team of Urban Studies students took this semester to clean, port, and begin to analyze this data. The three Urban Studies students were helped by an additional seven students in Dr. Glass’ Special Topics class, who had the reformation of this asset map as their final project. It should be noted that us three in the internship were drawn from that same class. In recategorizing and cleaning the data, we can now create specific maps tailored to specific stakeholders. The most obvious example of this is tourism, the hot industry in Fayette County, and one where maps could be extremely helpful. We tagged all the assets that were within the tourism sector as such, and so can now use this data to better understand the spatial strengths and weaknesses of this booming business in Fayette County. An early example of what kind of benefit these analyses can provide came from analyzing tourism assets within one mile of the famous GAP Trail which draws in a significant amount of Fayette County’s tourism. There is clear room for more business in settlements along the trail, and this can be shown to the community in a more intuitive, spatial way now, which was not achievable before. I hope they take the recommendation and add businesses along the trail.

               I don’t think my understanding of Appalachia changed as much as was confirmed. I moved here from New York because of the appeal of the “Appalachian vibe”, and that vibe was very much present here. Beautiful hills, proud and straightforward people, all of it was what I’d come to expect. What was more interesting and surprising to me was the specific relationship these people had with the capitalist system that had placed them there and then abandoned them after the land had been fully exploited. These were people who did not much care for money. A surprising fact I learned was that in many communities here, money wasn’t even very common until less than a hundred years ago, as the entire economy was monopolized by large companies and the barter system was used as these companies soaked up all the capital there was to have. Even now, the people who stay on this land don’t do it for money, they do it for an emotional connection to place and family. At the same time, they build this non-monetary sense of place and familial identity around the traditional industry of the region, coal mining and coke producing. The contradiction here is apparent: how can a group so divorced from the capitalist hustle also create identities born out of that same hustle? On paper, it doesn’t make a lot of sense. But, like many things in Appalachia, it’s one of those things you just have to go down and see to understand.

               When I’m old and gray, I would frame this to my grandchildren as my first experience in development, and just in doing anything related to my intended field at all. In that, it was extremely eye-opening for me. Previously, I was learning all of this content, but still wondering “what’s the point of all this?”. This semester showed me the answer to that question. This internship has been where I’ve taken what I have learned in college and actually started to apply it to the real world. So what were my key takeaways from this first experience? Well some of them were simple. Never say a buzzword outside of the academic context- fastest way to make a fool of oneself. Another was the power of just being talkative. I’m a naturally chatty person, and I’d like to think a good listener, and that endeared me to a lot of stakeholders, who ultimately were just looking for someone to chat with. Lastly, I’d say this internship has taught me yet again the power of group dynamics in these types of projects. Thankfully, we had a good one, and that propelled us to a lot of success, which I’m extremely grateful for. As we were zooming to this success though, I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if a cohort in a future year had a bad dynamic. With all these group presentations and different specializations, a negative, or even just not positive enough dynamic good grind the project to a halt.

               In terms of how this class is different from all other classes, I think most of the meat of that has been previously addressed, but to reiterate more clearly and concisely: in most classes, you talk a lot and do very little. In this class, things were actually done. Now that seems like I’m underselling it, but I promise you dear reader, I am not. I usually hate school. I hate talking about these up in the air concepts that I probably won’t think about again after I’m out of school, I hate having to write and write and write just hit wordcount, I hate having discussion boards. And I hate it because it’s not real. I pay to do work that’s not real work in hopes that I will help me. This internship, however, is different. In this class, I’m learning by helping other people, instead of working to theoretically help myself. Because I have an actual reason then to do the work required of me, I obviously care more about it. Because I care more about it, I internalize it more. By the end of the term, surprise surprise, I’ve learned more in this one credit course than I have in any of my other three credit courses. I guess that’s the power of that new-fangled experiential learning. I wish there was more of that in these liberal arts style majors, and I’m going to spend the rest of college pursuing any more opportunities to do something like this again.