Study abroad was something I always planned on doing when I came to college, but when I came to Fordham, my priorities changed. I became so involved with school and fell so in love with the people and the campus, I couldn't rationalize giving up a semester here when I only had 8 of them. I became so attached to Fordham and the city, I started applying to Summer internships so I wouldn't have to leave (that's how great this place is, sorry Mom). I landed several interviews, mostly for communication and event planning positions. One interview was for a Teach For America position in Houston, TX. I had no intention of leaving the greatest city in the world, but I figured it would be a good opportunity t
o practice my phone interviewing skills for my other interviews. As I started researching the program and company to prepare for the phone call, I was moved by the mission and the work of Teach For America: take the top college leaders who have a passion for educational equity and give them an opportunity to help work towards closing the achievement gap.
I. Needed. This. Internship.
I gave my best phone interview, got the offer, gladly accepted, and two months later, headed to the Lone Star State. I didn't realize what I was getting myself into until I started going through all the required reading during a layover in JFK. There were hundreds of pages talking about the operations of the summer training program I would be a part of, the relentless pursuit of results, DCC, DTSE, DIO, the copy center, the comm center; I couldn't make sense of any of it. I never once thought that this job might be too much for me and here I was 6 hours away from starting a 7 week job. For the first time, I was afraid of going.
That fear lasted exactly 6 hours. It vanished when I was met at 3:00 in the morning by one of my bosses who had waited up for me to arrive despite all my delays. The next morning, when I met the rest of the team, I could tell that this was going to be a great group of people to work with.
There were 16 other college kids interning with me. As "operations coordinators", we were responsible for making sure the day-to-day logistics of the Institute, as we called it, ran smoothly. 600 teachers came to Houston for 5 weeks to prepare for their classrooms and we had to make sure they had their lunches in the morning before the left for school, make sure they got to their correct bus, make sure the copiers were working when they needed to make
handouts, communicate the events of the day to the appropriate parties, coordinate workshops on different aspects of classroom management, create a workspace where teachers could work on projects for their classrooms, and most importantly create a culture that inspired them to do amazing things in their classrooms.
Team was a huge focus of our group. In addition to working together for 10 hours a day, we took advantage of the fact that we were all in a new city and explored as much as we could. We went to free concerts and movies in the park. We went to Ast
ros games (sup $5 tickets). We ate Tex Mex and real Barbeque. We went cowboy boot shopping. We went to see movies in a 1930s theatre. We biked around town. We layed out by the campus (yes, campus) pool to beat the hottest summer Texas had seen in a while. We tried two stepping at honky tonks. We went to a dog jumping competition. The city shut down the highway for Fourth of July and hosted a block party on a strip of the underpass.
While all the activities I did were great, the people I did them with were greater. I made friends with people from South Dakota, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, California, Florida, and Texas. At Fordham, I've always been the one who knows what the weather is like, what the people of the northeast are like, what their values are, etc. Last summer was the first time I was the outsider. I had no sense of direction, I couldn't compare the heat from one day to the next, I didn't know what life was like in the Midwest or the South. But I had great tour guides and educators. I wouldn't have learned about the German imm
igrants in Columbia, Missouri or the problems people face on the Native American Reservations in St. Francis, South Dakota if I had stayed in New York City. As amazing as this place is, and as much as I don't want to move anywhere else anytime soon, going "abroad" was something I needed to do.
I came back to campus with more vision for my student government. When you're responsible for the communication between 600 corps members and 100 staff members, a 70 member board with 1 advisor doesn't seem so bad.
I'm working my way through my New York City bucketlist now because I've learned how precious time can be. I knew I had 7 weeks and Houston and tried to do as much as I could while I was there. I have three months left at Fordham and I know I need to make every day worthwhile.
I've learned that long distance relationships are hard work. I talk regularly with Ben, Kelly, and Elizabeth, three of my closest friends from the summer. I'm invested in their lives even though I have to hear about it over the phone. It's not easy to coordinate busy schedules and time differences, but we make it work. Looking at where my life is now, compared to pre-Houston, it doesn't even compare. I became a stronger leader, a braver risk taker, and a better friend.
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