The Program on Negotiation

Having worked for about a month and a half so far this summer, I’m rapidly realizing that my internship experience now could be very different from the one that I had when I was here last winter. I guess I wasn’t prepared for the possibility that (gasp) not all internship experiences are the same. And just as I was challenged in the winter, PON being my first real job, I’m finding myself challenged now by a whole new set of issues that I’ll have to work through this summer.

For one thing, I’m doing two part-time jobs – one at PON and the other as an intern at a mediation organization. This arrangement was partly my attempt to have a chance to do everything that I was interested in this summer – which has been satisfying. And I’m learning a lot from both, which is certainly what I wanted. At the same time, what has been challenging is trying to maintain a sense of continuity throughout both internships. Instead of being able to plan out my time by the week, I have found that planning has to happen both at a daily level (“What can I get done today?”) and a much longer-term level (“How am I going to finish this project in twelve weeks, with only two days per week?”). But being forced into this sort of time management is probably a good thing to have happen, and if I do get the hang of it eventually, it would really help me out in my next big academic project (let’s face it, at this point to me it seems like a downright monolith), my senior thesis.

The different types of work involved in each internship also form an interesting mix. Whereas my work at PON has generally been research- and theory-oriented, I have to use the skills that I am learning at the mediation organization every day. Yesterday, at the mediation job, I caught myself literally remembering a word-for-word phrase from “Getting to Yes” during a conversation with a client. This can’t be a terrible sign (although it does prove that I’m a nerd), but the theory/practice split is still something that has always troubled me since working in this field. It seems like this issue is one that I’ll be thinking about a lot this summer, as I try to internalize the things that I learn at PON while being oriented, ultimately, towards practice.

I’m really excited about the projects that I’ve got going at PON. I’m working on a combination of research projects, creating photo slideshows for the PON website, a writing project, events to plan, and this blog – all of which makes for a nice combination (during one of my first days here, I made the mistake of spending literally the whole day trying to only read articles – by 5pm, my brain was fried, to say the least). My biggest goal is to take an active role in the structure and time allocation of my internship, and to force myself to take initiative in managing and accomplishing all my tasks.

For now, I’m going to try and update this blog at least one or two times a week. Stay tuned for updates and thanks for reading!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 @ 2:25 pm on the category PON Intern - Sara. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 Both comments and pings are currently closed.