Written by Development Intern, Malik Samuel
First off, I would like to say I hope for wellness and healing during this time of the pandemic for all.
I am coming to the end of my tenure for my internship as the Development Intern and I must say it is a very bittersweet feeling. I am a firm believer that you must take the good with the bad in life. The only “bad” experience or feelings I can say I had at Students United was the derailing feeling of knowing my internship is coming to an end and I won’t get to see and collaborate on as much of a consistent basis with such an amazing, driven team that Student United offers. I am forever thankful for the opportunity to be a part of the Students United team!
I honed a wide range of skills in my role as the Development Intern. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to be put in positions and scenarios that allowed me to grow and develop a wide repertoire of skills, but also the leeway to be an independent thinker which I think is often undervalued in society today. I also think that the granted independence allowed me to really advance my critical and analytical thinking skills.
At first, I was sort of nervous to take on this new position. I knew that I would have to step out of my comfort zone and do some things that I had never done before or that I was not too fond of trying for the first time. I am thankful to have a supervisor like Christina who understands that and encouraged me to try new things to bring new success. The team made it so much easier for me to do my job, they were all very helpful and welcomed me with open arms making it that much easier to get settled in and do good work. I have built everlasting relationships throughout my time at Students United. I’ll never forget some of the team meetings and lunch conversations we had.
Once I was comfortable, I began to really embrace the opportunities I had at hand. My favorite part of the internship besides the Students United team, was that I had the ability to engage with communities. A big part of my mission in life is to significantly impact the socioeconomic status and trends and lack of social justice in communities like I am from. By that I mean underrepresented, underprivileged, undersourced, urban communities. I found joy in this role because I felt like I was able to have an impact on that status through my role as the Development Intern and the promotion of our resources that make higher education possible for many students. Being able to step into environments that I know for a fact really could use these resources we offer and promote it and be able to help someone progress their life or work towards their dreams is really something that motivated me and made me want to go harder and keep advocating for socioeconomic equality.
Obviously COVID-19 caused some very unordinary conditions for us as a society. Many people had to make significant sacrifices and changes to their lives—then the murder of George Floyd at the hands of the MPD. These two very unfortunate events have caused our society to do many unprecedented things and have hurt many people in the process physically, mentally, and emotionally. These events definitely impacted Students United as well, we had events that lots of work was put into canceled, which was disappointing. But as I said earlier, I am a believer in taking the good with the bad, and I knew there was something more important at hand. An opportunity to make a stand for social justice and bring more attention to an ongoing issue of police brutality to minorities, especially in urban communities. Even in the midst of all of this negativity and tragic events I think it gave many people new perspectives and motivated many people to make a stand for what they believe in.
All in all, I am very thankful for the opportunity I had to be a part of Students United. I am forever grateful for Carlee and Christina for granting me the opportunity and trusting me to succeed and being strong supporters of me the whole way through. They have taught me so much about being a professional in the non- profit sector and in life in general, and even have made me realize things about myself I didn't even know.