Week 6: Solving Problems/Improving Leadership

From my experience with my work so far, I have identified two areas that could use improvement. The first is under-use of interns. Since most of my work is remote, I communicate mainly with my supervisor, so I’m not sure if there are other interns in the DCR and what their experience is like. It isn’t a big issue, but with two weeks left, I feel like I could be doing more. I’m happy with the project that I finished, but most of the work I do is organizing data in Excel or calling and emailing agencies to ask questions about risk assessment on invasive plants. I went into the lab and field a few times, and I felt like I was contributing a lot when I was doing that kind of work. I’m not sure why this under-use is happening, but I hope to do more in the time that I have left.

The second area is communication and collaboration with other DCR workers. I met with my supervisor a few times in person, but most of our communication has been through email. Some of the most important moments when having a mentor happen in person, and it’s harder to have those moments when you’re mostly doing remote work. My supervisor is also a really interesting person that I could learn a lot from, so I would like to have more of those moments. In addition, the other employees that I met were also people that I want to have more chances to connect with. Since I’m my supervisor’s only intern, I don’t really collaborate with anyone besides him, and I do enjoy working with other people. In terms of leadership, I would like to see what behaviors my supervisor’s colleagues display. They all have a very relaxed attitude, and I feel like I would enjoy working with them. I suspect that other partly or fully remote internships may have the same problems.