My last week! A lot of reflections here - I’ll save the most important ones for my final report.

This week was all about wrapping up my internship tasks. Did I finish the tracking work? Yes! Did I finish my literature review? Not until the very last day. Did I finish reading the book? Yes and no. The tracking work was very well-received by my supervisor and coworkers. I had the chance to present my findings at our team meeting on my last day in office. It was exciting to be able to present something I worked on, and I was so grateful to hear they appreciated my work. They said they wouldn’t have found the time to do this on their own – I felt like an asset and I felt like I contributed to the organization, even if in a very small way. This was my primary goal with my LiA: to help my organization with tasks, even if they are administrative and minute, that they would not have otherwise had the time or capacity to do.

The literature review was also well-received – they liked the methodological rigor of the work! I will say though, I submitted this review very late. I was too caught up in making it perfect and rigorous that I did not follow up on the urgency of when it needed to be done. I know my illness significantly hindered my ability to hit deadlines, but I believe I could have communicated this better. I overestimated how quickly I would recover, and assumed I would be able to complete all my tasks rather than realistically thinking about how much I could do. When asked if I was fine with my current workload, I felt inclined to say yes – because I wanted to contribute as much as possible. I did not recognize my own limitations. Although I finished the book and thoroughly enjoyed it, I did not have time to synthesize the findings. Many lessons here for the future in both recognizing my limitations and communicating them efficiently.

The end to my LiA feels quite bittersweet. There are many things I regret and many unfortunate circumstances that prevented my ability to contribute as much as I wanted to. I loved working at FrameWorks and this experience has made me realize what I like and what I don’t like when it comes to research and work – I’m inching closer to figuring out what I want to do with my life. I do wish to work with them again, at a much healthier time in my life! 

Until then, London.