In my second week at my internship, I feel much more settled and comfortable with the work I am taking on. I had more of a variety in tasks this week. I started off the week doing the same as the week before- searching for stakeholder organization in the current research project.
Once I was finishing up this task, I took some initiative in getting new things to do from my supervisor and giving some insight on what I would be interested in doing in the upcoming weeks. I suggested that I can draft inquiry emails to send to the organizations which was well received. I also voiced that I would love to be involved or shadow the actual interview process when they are being conducted. I then went on to hunt down contact information from each of the organizations. Doing all my work alone on the computer could feel monotonous (especially as I finally got sick this week), but the changes in what I was doing throughout the week helped to keep it fresh. I became really interested in the research I was conducting and organizations I was looking into. This work has given me a much stronger sense of my company’s goals and purpose alongside a lens on women’s health that strongly differs from a U.S. perspective on policy and healthcare. It has given me a strong impression that the people at the European Institute of Women’s Health and the European Union care about making sure women’s lives are better by helping them in this sector, fully wanting to understand their lived experiences.
So far, there has been a bit of ambiguity in my internship. This is especially because of my remote position. I mostly communicate with my supervisor through emails with an occasional zoom meeting once or twice a week. When my tasks are communicated to me, I have to take the initiative to ask follow up questions to have my work fully fleshed out for me to complete. It takes much more initiative to ask the questions I need to be successful in my role. While at first, I was nervous about asking questions upfront, I have learned it is a necessary aspect of my work and is encouraged by the people I work with. The ambiguity has definitely decreased from the 1st week as I understand my role better and know how I can best communicate my needs and questions with my supervisor.
Along with the ambiguity, I also noticed my workload not being as full as I would prefer. I have taken on some more tasks I will be doing this coming week, but I learned there isn’t much more to complete at this stage in the project’s process. It acts as another form of ambiguity in the workplace, just with time instead of instruction. To counteract this, I try to take the initiative to stretch out the work I complete to be more comprehensive and thought out. This also ends up limiting the miscommunication that comes from ambiguity by making my work better overall and less likely to need to be changed down the road.
After the work week was over, I had a slower weekend as I came off of being sick. But slower didn’t mean uneventful. We started off the weekend by checking out some pubs playing live music. On Saturday, we made the trek out to Sandycove to visit Forty Foot, a popular swimming and cliff jump spot. The name was a bit misleading. A forty foot cliff turned out to be about ten. It also wasn’t as warm out as we thought it would be, so a swim turned into a cold plunge pretty fast. Despite the curveballs, it was a great time and we were able to hang out on the rocks. Afterwards, I decided to have a quiet night in to recharge, reading Katabasis by R.F. Kuang which I picked up in a small bookstore while I’ve been here. On Sunday a few of us went to check out the Dublin Zoo and a Sunday flea market. Along the way, we were also able to see a tourist spot in an alley called the wall of love. The tiled walls were covered in printed quotes about love which mostly had Irish origins and handwritten messages visitors could write. Even though it wasn’t a niche or unique spot to visit, it was definitely memorable and picturesque.
