I can’t believe the internship program is nearing its end! It has been such a fun and rewarding experience interning at Alliance for Smiles, learning not only the hard work that goes into running a nonprofit organization (especially a smaller one), but also the care taken to change children’s lives, one smile at a time….

So why was San Francisco ranked as the happiest and healthiest city in America? One of the reasons is that there is an ocean of vegetarian and vegan restaurants in SF. Even at restaurants with meat options, there are plenty of vegetarian and vegan-friendly menus to choose from. Interestingly, you can even eat trees’ fruits…

Recently, San Francisco’s minimum wage has climbed up to $15 an hour in response to outrageous housing prices. Sadly, in the future, if I choose to work in San Francisco, I would need to have no car, no internet at home, no Netflix, no kids, no vacations, and just live stubbornly in a one-bedroom apartment…

By providing cleft lip and palate anomaly surgical care and follow-up treatment, Alliance for Smiles or AfS (the organization that I intern at) helps to reduce the number and stigma of such anomalies so that children can enjoy normal lives. With respect to innovation, AfS is trying to make its five treatment centers in China…

One important current political trend facing the U.S. is that millennials may outnumber Baby Boomers next year, a Pew Research Center study finds. In fact, millennials make up the largest proportion of the U.S. labor force. A second U.S. political trend is that a lot more people are part of multigenerational households. This trend might…

Today, the business sector is most affected by the growing popularity of social media. Networking sites such as Twitter and Instagram have been very much integrated into the lives of younger people. For example, the younger crowd uses digital technology to shop online and chat with others. With all of these rapid changes, companies are…

The cleft lip and palate industry provides cleft lip and palate anomaly surgical care as well as follow-up care free of charge, financial assistance for expenses such as families traveling to treatment centers, comprehensive information to educate the public to raise awareness and advocate for such causes, research to learn about the causes of such…

The organization where I intern at, Alliance for Smiles, fixes cleft lip and palate anomaly problems by sending surgical teams to various underserved areas such as China, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar for two-week missions. These teams are composed of 15 medical volunteers as well as 5 non-medical volunteers who cooperate with local medical practitioners to communicate…

The organization that I am interning at, Alliance for Smiles, has an informal, friendly, and creative atmosphere rather than one that is very formal and highly organized. There is no set dress code and there are no time sheets that you have to fill out for when you arrive and leave. You can take breaks…